Stage: The Gabriels

Brighton Festival have announced that this years programme will include The Gabriels: Election Year in the Life of One Family, a trilogy of plays by Tony Award winning playwright and director Richard Nelson.

Particularly topical, The Gabriels is the follow-up to Richard Nelson’s The Apple Family Plays which was the theatrical highlight of the 2015 Brighton Festival. Those of us who were lucky enough to see those performances back in 2015 will no doubt be clamouring to get tickets to see this new production.

This was modern theatre of such high quality, moving, intense, revealing and challenging all at the same time, and performed with a savage yet gentle reality that one seldom experiences in the theatre. It was quite remarkable how such a large body of work could be seen and digested with such ease as gradually the story unfolded over a series of extraordinary gatherings over food. I left the theatre both hungry for food and hungry for more from this incredible teaming or writer, actors and director – and now we have it.

The landmark series from New York’s leading theatre company, The Public Theater, follows one extraordinary, imperfect American family in real time, tracking their lives throughout the turbulent election year of 2016. History, money, politics, art and culture are all on the table in this moving trilogy about a family celebrating, remembering and waiting for the world to change.

The landmark series from New York’s leading theatre company, The Public Theater

The first play Hungry places us in the kitchen of the Gabriel family of Rhinebeck, New York. The family discusses their lives and disappointments, as they fight the fear of being left behind and attempt to find resilience in the face of loss.

What Did You Expect? brings us back to the kitchen of the Gabriel family, with the country now in the midst of the general election for President. In the course of one evening in the house they grew up in, history (both theirs and America’s), money, politics, family, art and culture are chopped up and mixed together, while a meal is made around the kitchen table.

The Gabriels gather once again in Woman of a Certain Age to await the result of the election. As they consider the future of their country, town and home, they compare notes on the search for empathy and authenticity at a time when the game seems rigged and the rules are forever changing.

One of the nation’s most prolific playwrights, Nelson wrote the book for the musical James Joyce’s The Dead, which earned him a Tony Award in 2000. Among his other works are Franny’s Way (Drama Desk Award nominee), Goodnight Children Everywhere (Olivier Award), Two Shakespearean Actors (Tony Award nominee), Some Americans Abroad (Olivier Award nominee) and Principia Scriptoriae (London Time Out Award). Nelson also won the 2008 PEN/Laura Pels Master Playwright Award and a 2008 Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, both for his career. He is an honorary artistic associate of the Royal Shakespeare Company, which has produced ten of his plays.

Brighton Festival will take place from 6-28 May 2017.