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‘Cabaret,’ Starring Eddie Redmayne, Sweeps Olivier Awards

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LONDON — A revival of “Cabaret” that has been the discuss of London’s theater world since opening in December, on Sunday swept the Olivier Awards, Britain’s equal of the Tonys.

Starring Eddie Redmayne in his first London position in a decade, “Cabaret” collected seven awards throughout a ceremony at London’s Royal Albert Corridor. Its haul included greatest musical revival, greatest actor in a musical (Redmayne), greatest actress in a musical for Jessie Buckley as Sally Bowles, and greatest director for Rebecca Frecknall.

Britain’s newspaper reviewers generally struggled for superlatives to explain “Cabaret.” Nick Curtis, writing in The Night Commonplace, summed it up with a easy: “Wow. Simply wow.”

Matt Wolf, reviewing the present for The New York Occasions, stated that Frecknall had made a “exceptional entry into musical theater” after a number of lauded stage productions right here, together with of Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” and Tennessee Williams’s “Summer time and Smoke.” “Frecknall pulls us right into a hedonistic milieu, solely to ship us out almost three hours later reminded of life’s horrors,” he added.

The musical has gained as a lot consideration for its staging as its performances, with audiences made to enter the Playhouse Theater by means of a facet door, solely to find the constructing has been remodeled to appear to be a Nineteen Twenties Berlin nightclub. Ticketholders — a few of whom criticized sky-high ticket costs — must work their manner by means of a labyrinth of corridors crammed with dancers and drinks to get to their seats.

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Of the actors in its unique solid, Redmayne received specific plaudits. Arifa Akbar, writing in The Guardian, stated he was “electrical,” including: “He provides an immense, physicalized efficiency, each muscular and delicate, from his curled limbs to his tautly expressive fingertips.”

The opposite huge winner on Sunday was “Lifetime of Pi” at Wyndham’s Theater, Lolita Chakrabarti’s adaptation of Yann Martel’s novel a few zookeeper’s son who, after a transport accident, is caught on a lifeboat at sea with solely animals for firm. It took 5 awards together with greatest new play and greatest actor for Hiran Abeysekera, in addition to a crowd-pleasing greatest supporting actor award for the seven puppeteers who deliver a 44-pound puppet tiger to life onstage.

Reviewers had usually singled out these puppeteers for reward. Dominic Cavendish, writing in The Day by day Telegraph, stated they made the tiger exude “a watchful malevolence and innate magnificence,” as he “strikes from brute prowling menace to persona in his personal proper.”

Another reveals did handle to get prizes on the Oliviers. “Again to the Future: the Musical” on the Adelphi Theater, a present that has grabbed consideration for its flying automotive as a lot as its songs, received greatest new musical, beating reveals together with “Get Up! Stand Up! The Bob Marley Musical” and the London debut of “Frozen.”

One of the best comedy play went to “Delight and Prejudice* (*type of)” on the Criterion Theater, a quick and unfastened retelling of Jane Austen’s novel, which closed in February citing an absence of audiences returning to the West Finish.

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The opposite notable winner was a revival of “Constellations” by the Donmar Warehouse on the Vaudeville Theater, which took awards for greatest revival and greatest actress in a play for Sheila Atim. That 70-minute, one-act play, a few couple falling out and in of affection, was successful final summer season as British theater got here again to life after a number of lockdowns.

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