The Royal Shakespeare Firm introduced Wednesday that it’s going to produce a play based mostly on George R.R. Martin’s Track of Ice and Hearth novels: Recreation of Thrones: The Mad King, “a sweeping new stage epic” set shortly earlier than the occasions in Recreation of Thrones, the ebook and HBO TV adaptation. The play, scripted by Each Good Factor author Duncan Macmillan, will premiere later this yr within the UK’s Stratford-on-Avon, with precedence tickets on sale as of April 14. Here is the theater’s description of the present:
A protracted winter thaws in Harrenhal, and spring is promised. At a lavish banquet on the eve of a jousting match, lovers meet and revellers speculate about who will contend. However within the shadows, amid rising unease on the bloodthirsty actions of the realm’s cruel Mad King, dissenters from his interior circle anxiously advance a treasonous plot. Far-off, the drums of battle sound.
Household bonds, historical prophecies, and the sacred line of succession can be examined in a harmful marketing campaign for energy. Who will survive? Who will rise?
‘Wars aren’t gained by these with most trigger, however whose story’s greatest advised.’
Track of Ice and Hearth followers are acquainted with the saga of the Mad King, Aerys II Targaryen, and the way his chaotic rule and the occasions of The Nice Tourney at Harrenhal led to an rebellion dubbed “Robert’s Revolt.” Robert Baratheon, the king of Westeros when Recreation of Thrones begins, led the cost in opposition to Aerys, and Jaime Lannister, serving as Hand to Aerys on the time, in the end struck him down, gaining the title “Kingslayer” within the course of. (Aerys can be the daddy of 1 Daenerys Targaryen.)
The identical followers additionally could also be conscious {that a} stage model of this story has been within the works for a few years — a Broadway manufacturing of the Mad King story was introduced as being in growth as early as 2021, however by no means materialized. That is clearly the identical present — that model was additionally being tailored by Macmillan and directed by Dominic Cooke, who helmed the Royal Shakespeare Firm model.
In line with The Hollywood Reporter, Martin launched this assertion concerning the play:
After I first wrote Recreation of Thrones, I by no means imagined that it might be something apart from a ebook. It was a spot for my creativeness to exist with out limits. To my nice shock, it was tailored for a collection and viewers have been in a position to enter the world of my creativeness by way of the medium of tv. For my work to now be tailored for the stage is one thing I didn’t count on however welcome with nice enthusiasm and pleasure. Theatre provides one thing distinctive. A spot for mine and the viewers’s creativeness to satisfy and hopefully create one thing magical.
For me, the RSC was the apparent selection when fascinated about placing a Recreation of Thrones story on the stage. Shakespeare is the best title in English literature, and his performs have been a relentless supply of inspiration to me and my writing. Not solely that, he confronted comparable challenges in learn how to put a battle on stage, so we’re in good firm. Will probably be thrilling to observe the occasions of this new play unfold in a dwell atmosphere. Duncan’s masterful script honours the world fully, and I’m so excited for each followers of the collection, and maybe individuals who have by no means picked up one in every of my books, to expertise this new story in a theatre.
The Royal Shakespeare Firm does appear a greater match than Broadway for a large-scale, narratively bold stage present expressly coping with court docket intrigue and insurrection in opposition to a ruler. That is a favourite theme of a lot of Shakespeare’s best-known performs, from Macbeth to Julius Caesar to Hamlet to Richard III. In most of those performs, the insurrection additionally results in battle — a tough, costly factor to placed on stage at any scale. However the RSC has quite a lot of expertise with precisely this type of story.
Macmillan and Mad King director Dominic Cooke additionally launched an announcement to that impact, saying, “From the start, Shakespeare’s histories and tragedies have been our main reference for the ambition of this manufacturing, so the RSC seems like a pure dwelling.”
It’s going to be fascinating to see new variations of characters like Jamie Lannister, Robert Baratheon (when he was youthful and in his prime), and different key gamers, like Ned Stark and Tywin Lannister, on stage. Sadly, this implies we’re most likely going to have to attend lots longer for a classic-style Broadway model of a Recreation of Thrones play, one thing that is much less Hamlet and extra Depraved, with large, belting musical numbers and kicklines of knights in armor. A minimum of we have at all times obtained Spamalot for that.
