National Theater Live: the Habit of Art - Encore May 8, 2010

Dirrected by Nicholas Hytner Starring Richard Griffiths, Alex Jennings 2h35m including one 20-minute intermission Auden often said that metre and rhyme led him down unexpected paths to thoughts he wouldnt otherwise have had, and in this respect versification and fornication are not so different. Benjamin Britten (Alex Jennings), sailing uncomfortably close to the wind with his new opera, Death in Venice, seeks advice from his former collaborator and friend, W H Auden (Tony Award-winning actor Richard Griffiths). During this imagined meeting, their first in 25 years, they are observed and interrupted by, amongst others, their future biographer and a young man from the local bus station. You are a rent boy. I am a poet. Over the wall lives the Dean of Christ Church. We all have our parts to play. Alan Bennetts new play is as much about the theatre as it is about poetry or music. It looks at the unsettling desires of two difficult men, and at the ethics of biography. It reflects on growing old, on creativity and inspiration, and on persisting when all passions spent: ultimately, on the habit of art. "In the end," said Auden, "art is small beer. The really serious things in life are earning ones living and loving ones neighbour." Doors and pre-show at 12:30pm Cost: $20 regular / $17 for Coolidge Members