Cate Blanchett is no stranger to the stage, just the Broadway stage. Yes, you read that right. The highly acclaimed stage and screen star has yet appear as a performer on Broadway. That is until now. Cate Blanchett is finally making her long waiting debut alongside Richard Roxburgh in The Present. So what is The Present you ask? Written by Cate Blanchett’s very own husband, acclaimed playwright Andrew Upton, The Present is based on Anton Chekhov's first play, which while technically untitled is often called Platonov. Originating in Blanchett's native Australia and first performed at The Sydney Theater Company, The Present is making its way on over to the Big Apple this fall/winter.
The Sydney Theater Company is offering about the upcoming Broadway production by giving a little history behind Chekhov’s Platonov:
“Anton Chekhov’s first play was a sprawling, unstructured epic but it marked out the style and themes he would return to in his later masterworks from The Seagull to The Cherry Orchard. It remains a mysterious, unpolished gem. The manuscript, left unpublished until almost two decades after Chekhov’s death, lacked a title. Over the years it has inspired various adaptations –- Wild Honey, Fatherlessness, The Disinherited – but it is most commonly referred to as Platonov, the name of the man at its centre.”
The site also goes on to height the importance of Blanchett’s starring role, adding:
“The play has always contained another extraordinarily rich and complex character -- that of Anna Petrovna.”
Cate Blanchett, Richard Roxburgh and The Present will all make their Broadway debuts together this fall/winter with an opening date and theater to yet to be named.
