Cate Blanchett will return to the stage for the first time in six years.
The Australian Oscar winner will perform as Arkadina in a new version of Anton Chekhov’s play The Seagull at the Barbican Theatre in London for six weeks from February.
Blanchett will be joined by Tom Burke (Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga) in the performance with the pair having recently wrapped on Steven Soderbergh film Black Bag, coming in 2025. The play has been adapted by Duncan Macmillan and Thomas Ostermeier, who will also direct the show.
“I have known and admired Cate for many years, and to see her on stage is always a privilege,” Ostermeier said. “I am thrilled that we will make our first artistic collaboration with this production of The Seagull at the Barbican, and that London will experience this once-in-a-generation actress in one of the greatest theatrical roles of Arkadina. I’m also very pleased to be forging a new artistic relationship with Tom Burke, who will play the role of Trigorin.”
The Seagull, generally considered to be the first of Chekhov’s four major plays, follows a middle-aged actress, Arkadina, her lover Trigorin, a successful writer, her writer son Konstantin and a young aspiring actress named Nina whom Konstantin is in love with. When the four reunite at her family’s country estate for the weekend, she must grapple with a son who never quite steps out of his mother’s shadow, as well as Nina’s romantic interest in her partner. The play explores unfulfilled potential and generational clashes.
Blanchett’s last theater role was in 2019 before the COVID pandemic struck, when she starred in When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other at London’s National Theatre.
