June 14-18, 2022
Running time: TBC
Synopsis
Actors and backstage staff gather for the rehearsal of a play (Caliban’s Day) that dramatises an imagined meeting between poet W H Auden and composer Benjamin Britten. Both men are now near the end of their artistic lives. They worked together some years earlier and know each other well.
The Habit of Art is a classic Bennett comedy about putting on a play, and the foibles and insecurities of actors and writers. It is also an examination of biography. What is the life of an artist? Are their frailties, peccadillos and the sordid details of their private moments of legitimate interest to set alongside their great works? And what of the rest of us, the ordinary folk, the bit-part players to these great lives?
Trigger warning: The Habit of Art deals with adult themes and contains scenes and dialogue of a sexual nature.
Director: Andy Webb