Willem Dafoe is on the phone! Plus Paul Chahidi, Glengarry Glen Ross and A Fine Idea
About this episode
This episode features an interview with Willem Dafoe discussing his role in the Biennale Theatre Festival and reviews of various theatre productions.
We have a pretty special guest interview this week: somehow we got Willem Dafoe on the phone from Venice, where he's now in his second year as artistic director of the Biennale Theatre Festival. Long before Spider-Man villains and Wes Anderson ensembles, Dafoe was a downtown New York theatre kid, spending four decades with the experimental Wooster Group, and he is as brilliant on the subject of live performance as you'd hope. He also tells Nick Curtis why he's 'very turned on right now'... In reviews, the Old Vic's all-female Glengarry Glen Ross gives us plenty to chew over — is gender-swapping David Mamet's toxic-masculinity classic illuminating or just a clever exercise? — while A Fine Idea at the Arcola tackles the murky world of international aid with righteous research. The delightful and ridiculously versatile Paul Chahidi talks about playing opposite Sandra Oh in Martin Crimp's reimagined The Misanthrope at the National. And we dig into a stacked week of theatre news: a new James Graham play about Keynes (John Maynard, not Milton), the Shaftesbury Theatre's renaming in honour of Judi Dench, and Ian McKellen's much-anticipated return to the stage at The Yard. Talk to us on…
People in this episode
Guests: Willem Dafoe, Paul Chahidi
Topics covered
- theatre
- interviews
- performing arts
- gender roles
- international aid
- theatre news
Keywords
- Willem Dafoe
- Glengarry Glen Ross
- A Fine Idea
- Paul Chahidi
- theatre news
- gender-swapping
- international aid
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Old Vic, Arcola, Shaftesbury Theatre, The Yard
Books & works: Glengarry Glen Ross, A Fine Idea, The Misanthrope, John Maynard
Places: Venice, New York
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