A revival of Alan Bennett’s 2009 play, The Habit of Art is at Cambridge Arts Theatre from Monday, October 29 to Saturday, November 3.
A revival of Alan Bennett’s 2009 play, The Habit of Art is at Cambridge Arts Theatre from Monday, October 29 to Saturday, November 3.
The play centres on actors rehearsing a play called Caliban’s Day. (Auden thought Shakespeare’s play The Tempest was incomplete and Caliban should have an epilogue.)
Caliban’s Day is about a fictitious meeting in 1973 in Auden’s rooms at Oxford, between the poet W H Auden and the composer Benjamin Britten. Auden has hired a rent boy called Stuart and when the journalist Humphrey Carpenter arrives to interview him, Auden mistakes him for Stuart.
Britten has been auditioning boys for Death in Venice nearby. He wants to discuss his misgivings about the theme of the piece and the reflections on his own life, but Auden assumes Britten wants him to write the libretto. Starring Matthew Kelly and David Yelland, shows 7.45pm with 2.30pm matinees Thursday and Saturday. Tickets, from £20 from 01223 503333 or cambridgeartstheatre.com.
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