by Murtada
Fasten your seat belts, 2018 is gonna be a glorious year. At least for London theatergoers. Cate Blanchett will star as Margo Channing in a stage adaption of All About Eve (1950). Eve, which originally starred Bette Davis as Margo, is the ultimate backstage rivalry story. Margo is the big star fighting her huge ego as well as ageism as she tries to survive being upstaged by the young ingenue Eve, who starts as her biggest fan and assistant. Blanchett playing Margo is very meta. Forget that she already played Katharine Hepburn and now gets a chance to play her similarly lauded contemporary's most famous part...
Cate is also a great stage star (most recently on Broadway in The Present) playing a great stage star. Of course Margo was reaching an impasse in her career after turning 40. On the other hand Blanchett, at 47, seems to be coming to even greater success as an actress, both on stage and screen. This is just one of the many projects that will make 2018 another big year for her.
This staging will be adapted and directed by the internationally acclaimed Ivo van Hove, recently on Broadway with minimalist interpretations of two Arthur Miller classics, View from the Bridge and The Crucible. He has now moved on to staging film adaptations. Jude Law currently stars in his staging of Visconti’s Obsession in London. Before Eve makes it to the boards in the spring of 2018, Bryan Cranston will star in his adaptation of Network, also in London.
Now who plays Eve? Could it be Saoirse Ronan who starred in Van Hove’s The Crucible on Broadway and was Blanchett’s antagonist in Hanna (2011)? Perhaps a rematch with her co-star from The Maids Elizabeth Debicki, who some in the press keep trying to sell as the next Blanchett -- as if there could ever be two Cates! Maybe get Lupita Nyong’o, who announced herself as a Broadway star last year with Eclipsed? We certainly would like to see these two share a stage other than Oscar’s; they won on the same night 3 years ago. Would it be too odd for this story to be the reunion of Carol and Therese (Rooney Mara)? It too involves a lot of glamorous cigarette smoking!
Londoners, have you started queuing for tickets yet?