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EXCLUSIVE: Keira Knightley (Black Doves), Stephen Dillane (Game of Thrones) and Luke Thompson (Bridgerton) will prima this autumn successful a London shape adjustment of nan Oscar-winning German movie The Lives of Others, a emotion communicative sublimely wrapped successful a psychological surveillance thriller group successful Stasi-controlled 1984 East Berlin.
Broadway and West End shaper Sonia Friedman confirmed nan news to Deadline during an exclusive interview.
Robert Icke, who was represented connected Broadway this play pinch his blistering dramatization of Oedipus with Lesley Manville and Mark Strong, will nonstop nan caller work. He has collaborated intimately pinch The Lives of Others film head and writer Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck connected nan play that will statesman its world-premiere tally astatine London’s Adelphi Theatre from October 14 done January 9, 2027.
Tickets are connected waste from 9 a.m. UK clip today, pinch 25% of seats during nan constricted play disposable for betwixt $39-$47, which is bully news considering nan measurement West End summons prices successful immoderate instances are opening to lucifer exorbitant prices charged connected Broadway!
The image won nan 2007 Best International Film Oscar. Friedman says she’s been “obsessed” pinch nan communicative ever since.
It’s a potent communicative astir a playwright, Georg Dreyman (played by Thompson), his actress-girlfriend Christa-Maria Sieland (Knightley) and Gerd Wiesler (Dillane), a maestro Stasi interrogator instructed to bug — each which measurement — nan couple’s apartment. In nan movie, nan roles were played by Sebastian Koch, Martina Gedeck and Ulrich Mühe, respectively.
Friedman notes that Donnersmarck’s being “incredibly respectful” and “very overmuch encouraging Rob and his squad and maine to benignant of find our ain sound wrong it.” She stresses that Donnersmarck “doesn’t want america to do a religious screen-to-stage adaptation. He’s not remotely willing successful that, and neither are we.
“What we’re willing successful is taking nan characters and nan bosom of nan communicative and nan themes, and past uncovering our theatrical language. And what’s exciting, is that he wants america to support digging into nan communicative and spell arsenic heavy arsenic we can, and return it to places that possibly nan movie couldn’t conscionable successful position of really we theatrically manifest nan literal surveillance,” Friedman explains.
Knightley and Icke are friends. When he mentioned nan task to her past year, she was sent a book “and she publication it and wrong 24 hours she was in,” Friedman reports.
“It’s a singular domiciled for her. And she’s not been connected shape for a very agelong clip successful London,” says Friedman, noting that nan past clip Knightley trod nan boards successful London was successful a revival of Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour, pinch Ellen Burstyn, Elisabeth Moss, Carol Kane and Tobias Menzies, backmost successful 2011 directed by Ian Rickson. It was produced, arsenic it happens, by Friedman.
However, nan past clip Knightley took a curtain telephone astatine each was erstwhile she debuted connected Broadway successful an adjustment of Emile Zola’s Thérèse Raquin at Studio 54 a decade ago.
The character does look to favour useful that woody pinch nan secretive intelligence world and injustice. For instance, films specified as Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, The Imitation Game, Official Secrets and nan Netflix drama Black Doves appear successful her file.
Friedman jokes that erstwhile she and nan show’s creatives discussed nan casting of Wiesler, “you go, ‘Well, who we request is personification for illustration Stephen Dillane. Okay, let’s inquire Stephen Dillane!’ ”
The actor’s known to be, Friedman attests, “very choosy successful nan activity he does and truthful it’s a individual benignant of thrill to beryllium moving pinch him because I deliberation he’s a genius. And Rob and I are conscionable perfectly cock-a-hoop that he responded to nan piece.”
Dillane’s astir apt champion known for his ruthless Stannis Baratheon in Game of Thrones and for his perfectly sounded performances in Darkest Hour, The Tunnel and Sherwood. But he trim his teeth connected nan shape wherever he’s been astatine easiness successful Shakespeare, Eugene O’Neill, Ibsen and of people Stoppard, wherever 1 of his top triumphs was playing other Jennifer Ethel in The Real Thing in London. They past transferred to Broadway wherever some won Tony Awards.
Thompson’s known for playing Benedict in Bridgerton but knows his measurement connected nan boards having appeared astatine Shakespeare’s Globe 3 times; played nan Almedia Theatre twice; and starred pinch James Norton, Omari Douglas and Zubin Varla successful Ivo van Hove’s scorching shape adjustment of Hannah Yanagihara’s A Little Life. He was a good Edgar other Ian McKellen and Sinead Cusack in King Lear, and he led nan Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2024 accumulation of Love’s Labour’s Lost in Stratford-upon-Avon.
The Lives of Others film has go a classic; 1 of those movies that rewards successful revisiting it.
With a consciousness of siren successful her voice, Friedman notes that moreover though it’s group successful nan 1980s, its communicative of invading, really much for illustration penetrating, backstage lives is wholly pertinent now that we unrecorded successful a chilling age of extended CCTV sum of our mundane movements successful nationalist and nan intrusive monitoring of our each keystroke connected our physics devices.
“It’s go much and much powerful and resonant, and situation I moreover opportunity it, applicable astir surveillance,” Friedman argues.
“And really vulnerable our freedoms are and really easy our freedoms tin beryllium eroded without america moreover noticing,” she adds pinch concern.
“And each nan themes and nan ideas wrong it, moreover though they’re very specifically set, are very cosmopolitan and correct now consciousness incredibly poignant,” Friedman observes.
The operation of surveillance and emotion makes for “such an improbable emotion story,” Friedman says. “And nan emotion communicative arsenic successful nan narration betwixt Weisler, who’s watching them and listening, and done their love, he finds compassion. And truthful it’s a devastating emotion story. And astatine nan bosom of it, I deliberation it’s astir kindness. He finds his kindness done an unbearable situation.”
The shaper behind Harry Potter and nan Cursed Child and existent West End smash hit Paddington: The Musical says that her relationship pinch nan worldly stretches backmost 15 years to erstwhile Donnersmarck approached nan precocious Tom Stoppard to spot if nan playwright would beryllium willing successful moving pinch him connected an adjustment of nan film. “Tom very quickly said, ‘This isn’t for me,’ ” but he pointed nan filmmaker successful Friedman’s direction.
The shaper finds nan movie “absolutely astonishing” and has agelong been a fan. Also, she notes, it has been “a benignant of obsession of excavation to find a theatrical shape for it and a theatrical life,” and nan preamble done Stoppard to Donnersmarck gave her nan impetus to research nan thought of bringing it to nan stage.
A fewer years agone she approached Icke to spot if he mightiness beryllium keen. “He’s been truthful busy, and he turns truthful galore things down, but he instantly responded to nan communicative and nan worldly and really incredibly theatrical it is,” Friedman recalls.
The logic for choosing nan Adelphi, agelong known arsenic a location for musicals, is because nan play is some “so epic and profoundly intimate,” Friedman says, while watching that Icke and designer Hildegard Bechtler and their teams “wanted nan biggest theatre we could find successful bid to really analyse really our lives are benignant of surveyed from each corners.”
She says that German-born Bechtler has been “very cardinal to this” because she’s been “a immense driving unit to this happening because it’s an incredibly important movie for her and I deliberation for truthful galore Germans, arsenic good arsenic cinephiles and anybody who loves awesome storytelling.”
Lighting creation is by Jon Clark, sound creation by Giles Thomas, and nan acclaimed Max Richter has been charged pinch composing a people that’s an integral portion of nan plot.
