Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen Getting Existential on Broadway this Fall

Resident all-star Patrick Stewart will be joining equally legendary Ian McKellen on Broadway this fall in a two-play repertory of Harold Pinter’s “No Man’s Land” and Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot.”

Let’s all take a second to calm down. We’re good? Okay:

The two plays will run in rotation, sometimes on adjacent nights and sometimes on the same days as matinee and evening performances. Patrick Stewart will play Vladimir in “Godot” and Hirst in “No Man’s Land,” with Ian McKellen playing opposite as Estragon in “Godot” and Spooner in “No Man’s Land.” Details on casting beyond these roles are still to come.

The duo took on “Godot” in a 2009 London production, but this will be the first time New York sees it. As for “No Man’s Land,” the team will prepare this summer with a “try-out production,” details for which will be announced later. Pairing the “bleakly funny existential classics” together was a natural and instinctive decision, according to director Sean Mathias. From the New York Times:

“In ‘Waiting For Godot,’ two men exist in a universe that is both real and imagined – a place where time does not always advance towards a future. And as the two men wait, two outsiders enter to disrupt that universe,” Mr. Mathias said. “In ‘No Man’s Land,’ two men inhabit a land that is neither here nor there – a land where time and memory play unreliable tricks. And as these two men converse, two other men who are both familiar and unfamiliar enter this same land with unnerving effect.”

So we will all go to support our favorite neighbor and represent the Slope; we’ll just have to coordinate who’s going when. We’ll figure it out. Can’t wait. So excited!

Photo via Broadway.com