New page-to-stage musical 'From Here to Eternity' will receive its world premiere at the West End's Shaftesbury Theatre next year. The production will open 23rd October 2013, with previewa from 30th September. The show, which is adapted from James Jones' 1951 novel, features lyrics by multi award-winner Tim Rice, music by newcomer Stuart Brayson and a book by Bill Oakes.
From Here to Eternity is set on the Hawaiian island of Oahu in 1941, before and during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Loosely based on Jones' own wartime experiences, the story follows several members of a military company, including Captain Dana “Dynamite” Holmes and First Sergeant Milt Warden, who begins an affair with Holmes' wife Karen.
Published in 1951, From Here to Eternity was James Jones’ debut novel and won him the National Book Award for fiction. It spawned the Oscar-winning 1953 film starring Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed and Frank Sinatra, as well as a subsequent TV mini-series.
Censors famously toned down several homosexual elements of the story in both the novel and film. Speaking to the Telegraph recently, Tim Rice said: "There’s a lot of tension in the book of the relationships between the men which are at times gay, at other times simmering, and it’s something we definitely won’t keep out of the show.
Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in the 1953 film "It’s quite a serious, grown-up show, but there’s plenty of humour. I guess when writing lyrics and songs for GIs, one is aware there are a lot of GIs out there doing just that, but we’re not trying to make any clunking parallel.”
It has recently been announced that the novel will soon be re-released with previously unpublished material included.
Follow us on Twitter to keep up to date with all the latest theatre news, reviews and interviews: @West_End_Frame
No comments:
Post a Comment