MEPHISTO [A RHAPSODY]

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★★★★★ 'One of the most thought-provoking and enjoyable pieces of theatre I have seen in a long while' (The Observer)

Fascism. Resistance. Apathy.

In the town of Balbek the far right are about to seize power. At the local theatre Aymeric dreams of celebrity; Lucas longs for a liberal revolution; Michael is seduced by the extremists. Juliette Demba is in fear for her life.

As this political earthquake convulses society Aymeric must make his choice: resist the forces of hatred or harness them for his own success.

Directed by Kirsty Housley (The Encounter), Mephisto [A Rhapsody] is a searing contemporary response to Klaus Mann’s banned, and fiercely political cult novel. It is based on the real life story of Gustaf Gründgens whose dreams of fame led him to betray everything, and at the peak of his career, perform Faust for Hitler. Samuel Gallet’s urgent new play asks, what would you sacrifice to do the right thing?

Find out more about the story of Mephisto [A Rhapsody], read our blog here.

Read the interview with director Kirsty Housley

Read the rehearsal diary by Assistant Director Kaleya Baxe

Does Art Have the Power to Change the System? Our Artistic Director, Ellen McDougall speaks to cast members, Subika Anwar-Khan and Tamzin Griffin. Listen to our podcast here!

Content warnings: This production contains depictions of suicide and violence, swearing, references to fascism, racism, Islamophobia and drugs.

Production warnings: Contains flashing lights, haze, real cigarette smoke and loud noises.

Get Tickets

evening performances: 7.30pm

matinees: 2:30pm

running time: approx. 2 hours 15 minutes, including an interval

We price tickets a little differently here at the Gate Theatre - here's how and why.

press night: Tue 8 Oct

supporter’s evening: Thurs 10 October

young people’s night: Thurs 17 Oct

caption evening: Tues 22 Oct

audio described evening: Thurs 24 Oct

Cast & CREATIVES

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Subika anwar

Subika Anwar Khan

Subika studied Creative writing and English Language at the University of Gloucestershire and has taken numerous performing arts training courses. Subika has previously appeared in ‘Julie at the National Theatre directed by Carrie Cracknell and earlier this year secured her first Television role as PC Nawaz across two episodes of BBC award winning soap ‘EastEnders’. Subika has recently finished filming ‘After Love’ a British feature film directed by BAFTA Nominated Aleem Khan which secured her first feature film role.

Leo Bill

Leo Bill

Theatre includes: The Tragedy of King Richard The Second (Almedia), Curtains (Rose Theatre) A Midsummers Nights Dream, The Glass Menagerie, (Young Vic), Hamlet (The Barbican), Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, A Woman Killed With Kindness, Pains of Youth, The Observer, The Hothouse, The Reporter (National Theatre), Posh (Royal Court) and Beautiful Thing (Sound Theatre).

Film includes: Rare Beasts, In Fabric, Peterloo, Hamlet, Alice in Wonderland - Through The Looking Glass, Mr Turner, A Long Way Down, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Me and Orson Wells, Becoming Jane, The Living and the Dead, Kinky Boots, These Foolish Things, The Fall, Vera Drake, LD50, Two Men Went To War, 28 Days Later, All or Nothing and Gosford Park

TV includes: The Long Song, The Strike Series, Taboo, The White Queen, Pramface, The Borgias, Words of Captain Scott, Dr Who - A Christmas Carol, Home Time, Ashes to Ashes, Lead Balloon, Sense and Sensibility, Jekyll, Bash, A Very Social Secretary, Silent Witness, Messiah III, Eroica, The Canterbury Tales, Spooks 2, Midsummer Murders, Harry Enfield’s Celeb, Surrealismo, Attachments IIand Crime and Punishment.

Tamzin griffin-9633 (2)

Tamzin Griffin

Theatre includes: Present Laughter, Tonight at 8:30 (Chichester Festival Theatre), St George and the Dragon, Draw Me Close (National Theatre/Tribeca Film Festival/Young Vic), Emil and the Detectives, Greenland and Our Class (National Theatre); The War Has Not Yet Started (Theatre Royal Plymouth); Cyrano de Bergerac (Southwark Playhouse); The Hudsucker Proxy (Nuffield Theatre Southampton and Liverpool Everyman); Far Away and Red Demon (Young Vic); Jedermann (Salzburger Festspiele); The Empress and Othello (RSC); The Master and Margarita (Complicite/Barbican & international tour); A Dog's Heart (Complicite/Opera House Amsterdam); Brief Encounter (Kneehigh/Birmingham Rep & Haymarket West End); A Matter of Life and Death (Kneehigh/National Theatre); Rough Magyck (Forkbeard Fantasy/RSC); Measure for Measure (Complicite/National Theatre & international tour); Red Demon (Tokyu Bunkamura); Strange Poetry(Complicite/LA Philharmonic); San Diego (Tron and Edinburgh Festival); Witness (Gate Theatre and BAC); Shockheaded Peter(Lyric Hammersmith, West Yorkshire Playhouse, national and international tour: Olivier Award for Best Entertainment); Nothing Lasts Forever (BAC); The Fear Show (ICA); The Lights Are On But Nobody's Home (Royal Court Theatre); Obituary (ICA and Maubeuge International Festival France); Demon Lovers (Meeting Ground Theatre Company); House (Paines Plough/Salisbury Playhouse); Ron Koop's Last Roadshow (BBC/Industrial & Domestic); Civic Monument (Serpentine Gallery and tour). Television and film includes Dad’s Army, Holby City, ABC Murders, Some Candid Observations on the Eve of the End of the World, A Fantastic Fear of Everything, Alice, Chernobyl: Surviving Disaster, Casualty, Casanova, The Calcium Kid, Smack the Pony, Doctors, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, Roadrunner, Rolf's Animal Hairdressers, Bob and Margaret, Teletubbies, Suburban Psycho, The Pay Off, Great Britain, Medus. Radio includes Pericles, The Gestapo Minutes, The Fireraisers.

Rebecca humphries

Rebecca Humphries

Theatre credits include: Myth and Earthworks (RSC), Wild Honey, The Argument (Hampstead Theatre), Pomona (Orange Tree, then National Theatre), The Kitchen (National Theatre), Temple (Donmar Warehouse), Open Court: Primetime (Royal Court), I Am A Camera (Southwark Playhouse) 24 Hour Plays (Old Vic) As a writer, director and performer: Prom Kween (Udderbelly, Cowgate) and Dizney Rascal (Otherplace) TV credits include: Trigonometry, The Agency, Cockroaches, Big Bad World, Sean Walsh World, Come Fly With Me and Cardinal Burns Radio credits include: The World According to Harry Priest and Riot Girls

Seanjackson

Sean Jackson

Theatre includes: Eden (Hampstead Theatre); Mrs Dalloway(Arcola Theatre); Macbeth(Shrewsbury); The Hook (Northampton/Liverpool Everyman); Antony & Cleopatra, Holy Warriors (Shakespeare's Globe); Richard III (Nottingham Playhouse/York Theatre Royal); Say It With Flowers (Hampstead); Beauty and the Beast, Waves (also New York), The Seagull, A Dream Play, The Mandate, Iphigenia at Aulis, The Talking Cure, Ivanov(National Theatre); Richard II, Hamlet (also Broadway), The Wild Duck (Donmar); The Jewish Wife (Young Vic); Henry V (Manchester Royal Exchange). TV and film includes: The Innocents, Eddie the Eagle, Da Vinci's Demons (2 series), The Fear, Silent Witness, Waking the Dead, Eastenders, No Man's Land.Audio includes: Dalek Empire 3 - The Exterminators, Doctor Who - The Marian Conspiracy (Big Finish).

Anna-maria nabirye

Anna-Maria Nabirye

Anna-Maria Nabirye played Macduff earlier this year in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse’s Macbeth, other theatre credits include We Know Not What We May Be (Metis Theatre/The Barbican), The Paper Man, (Improbable Theatre), Macbeth & Les Blancs (National Theatre), Boudica & A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare’s Globe), They Drink It In The Congo (The Almeida), Richard III, Medea, Blood Wedding, Fiesco, Three Sisters (The Faction), Egusi Soup (Menagerie Theatre & Theatre Royal Bury St.Edmunds), Leaving Planet Earth (Grid Iron), 24 HOUR PLAYS (Old Vic), Mad Blud (Theatre Royal Stratford East) Ugly (Reddladder), Handa's Hen (Little Angel Theatre). Television credits include Elizabeth Is Missing (BBC1), Informer (BBC1), Collateral (BBC2), Waterloo Road (BBC) & Misfits (E4). Film credits include The Scar (Film London), The Keeping Room (Gilbert Films) & The Briny (DNA/Film4). Anna-Maria creates, writes and directs her own Live Art, Theatre & Film her current works are Up In Arms currently supported by Arts Admin and Motherhoody a commission from The Albany supported by Arts Council England.

Rhys Rusbatch

Rhys trained at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama Theatre includes: Knives In Hens (Perth Theatre), The Rivals (Bristol Old Vic/ Citizens), Wendy and Peter Pan (RSC), Mametz, The Persians (National Theatre of Wales); Hannah, Not Now Bernard, Henry V (Unicorn Theatre/Tour); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Lyric, Hammersmith/ Royal Exchange/ UK Tour); Greenland, Our Class (National Theatre); Eurydice (Young Vic); Sitcom Trials (Leicester Square) TV includes: Sherlock, Merlin, In Search of Pete Doherty Film includes: Dirt Ash Meat, Burn Burn Burn, Zero Dark Thirty, Hunky Dory Radio: Ed Reardon

Elizabeth chan

Elizabeth Chan- Writer and Performer

Elizabeth Chan trained at Ecole Philippe Gaulier in Paris and at Drama Centre London. Theatre includes: Mephisto [A Rhapsody], Dear Elizabeth (Gate Theatre); Shakespeare Walks and Shakespeare in the Abbey (Shakespeare’s Globe); Macbeth, Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (National Theatre); Celebration Florida (Soho Theatre); Henry IV (Donmar Warehouse); Chimerica (Almeida/West End); The Wheel (National Theatre of Scotland); Into the Numbers (Finborough); B!irth (Royal Exchange); The Suger-Coated Bullets of the Bourgeoisie (HighTide); Caught, Hamlet is Dead (Arcola); Don’t Shoot the Clowns (Fuel); An Argument About Sex (Traverse/Tramway); Cinderella (Lyric Hammersmith). TV includes Vera, Chimerica, No Offence, Motherland, The Last Dragonslayer, Last Tango in Halifax, Cucumber, Holby City, Black Mirror and Silent Witness.

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Samuel Gallet – Writer

Born in 1981, Samuel Gallet is a playwright and poet- he regularly adapts his dramatic poems for the stage with a company of musicians. The majority of his work has been produced in France and internationally as well as being broadcast on France Culture Radio. He runs the Eskander collective and is co-director of the department of writing and dramaturgy at the Ensatt. Among his work, which has been published by Editions Espaces 34, are the following plays: Autopsie du Gibier (in the collection Le Monde Me Tue), Encore un Jour Sans, Communiqué n°10 (2011), Oswald de Nuit, a trilogy including Oswald, L’Ennemi and Rosa, (2012), Issues (2015), La Bataille d'Eskandar (2017), La Ville Ouverte (2018), Mephisto Rhapsodie (2019).

Kirsty Housley – Director

Current and future credits include: Avalanche (Barbican - dramaturg); Tao of Glass (Manchester International Festival), Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran (Traverse - co-creator). Theatre works include: I’m a Phoenix, Bitch (Battersea Arts Centre, touring - co-director), Grimm Tales (Unicorn); The Distance (Roundhouse); Misty (Bush Theatre/West End - dramaturg); The Believers Are But Brothers (Bush Theatre, Ovalhouse, West Yorkshire Playhouse Transform17 season and Northern Stage Edinburgh – co-director); Myth (RSC – co-written with Matt Hartley) The Encounter (Complicité, EIF, Warwick Arts Centre, Theatre Vidy, Bristol Old Vic, UK tour - co-director); A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer (dramaturg, National Theatre and Complicité, director – international tour); Wanted (Chris Goode and Company, Transform Festival, West Yorkshire Playhouse); Walking the Tightrope (Offstage and Theatre Uncut); All I Want (Live Theatre, Leeds Libraries and Jackson’s Lane); Mass (Amy Mason at Bristol Old Vic, Camden People’s Theatre); The Beauty Project, Theatre Uncut 2012 (Young Vic); How to Be Mortal (Penny Dreadful at Soho and tour); Bandages (Corn Exchange Newbury and tour); 9 (West Yorkshire Playhouse for Chris Goode and Company); Thirsty (The Paper Birds). Kirsty has been the recipient of the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award and the Title Pending award for innovation at Northern Stage. She is an associate of Complicité and working with a number of independent artists.

Basia Bińkowska – Designer

Basia is a performance designer based in London. Before completing a theatre design course in the UK, she trained in fine arts in her native Poland. She is the overall winner of the Linbury Prize for Stage Design 2017 with the winning design for Lyric Hammersmith's production of Othellomacbeth. She was nominated for the Best Designer at the Stage Debut Awards 2018 and has been recently nominated for an Offie for Best Set Design for Blood Knot at Orange Tree. Recent credits include: Crooked Dances (Royal Shakespeare Company), Acts of Resistance (Headlong Theatre & Bristol Old Vic), Wolfie (Theatre503), Blood Knot (Orange Tree Theatre), Othellomacbeth (Lyric Hammersmith & Home Manchester), Cuckoo (Soho Theatre), Devil with a Blue Dress (Bunker Theatre). Upcoming: Ivan and the Dogs (Young Vic).

Jessica Hung Han Yun – Lighting Designer

Lighting Designer credits include: EQUUS (ETT); Pah-la (Royal Court); Armadillo (The Yard); Seven Methods of Killing Kylie (Royal Court);The Human Voice (Gate Theatre); Cuckoo (Metal Rabbit Productions); Snowflake (Arts Old Fire Station); One (Bert & Nasi International Tour); Forgotten (Yellow Earth & Moongate UK Tour); Dear Elizabeth (Gate Theatre); Into The Clouds (Nonsuch Theatre Company International Tour); Hive City Legacy (Hot Brown Honey & Roundhouse);The Party’s Over (Nonsuch Theatre Company); Gypsy Disco (Boomtown Festival); Becoming Shades (Chivaree Circus); Nine Foot Nine (Sleepless Theatre Company).

Helen Skiera – Sound Designer

Out Of Water (Orange Tree), A Christmas Carol (Bristol Old Vic), The Lovely Bones (Royal and Derngate and Tour), This Is Not For You (Graeae GDIF and SIRF), Instructions For Correct Assembly, Bodies (Royal Court Theatre); Imber (You Walk Through), Betrayal, Echo's End, The Magna Carta Plays, (Salisbury Playhouse); The Encounter (Complicite); Crossings, Here I belong (Pentabus); Good Dog, I Know All The Secrets In My World, The Epic Adventure of Nhamo The Manyika Warrior and his Sexy Wife Chipo, The Legend of Hamba, (Tiata Fahodzi); House and Garden (Watermill); Harajuku Girls, (Finborough Theatre), The Dog, The Night, and The Knife, Pandora's Box, Sister Of, Miss Julie, (Arcola); The Boy Who Climbed Out of His Face, (Shunt); The Last Words You'll Hear, (Almeida at Latitude); Advice for the Young at Heart (Theatre Centre); The Centre, (Islington Community Theatre); The Three Sisters, The Laramie Project, (GSMD); Snow White, US/UK Exchange, (Old Vic New Voices); Meat (Bush Theatre), As Associate: Barbershop Chronicles (National Theatre), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Young Vic/West End), Adler and Gibb, (Royal Court Theatre); I'd Rather Goya Robbed Me of My Sleep Than Some Other Arsehole, (The Gate).

Mike Winship – Sound Designer

Recent sound designs include: Youth Without God (Coronet); #HonestAmy (Pleasance, Edinburgh); Sonny (ArtsEd); Anatomy of a Suicide (Central School of Speech & Drama); Anna X (Vault Festival); The Jumper Factory (Young Vic); The Winter’s Tale (National Theatre & Schools Tour); The Mysteries (Manchester Royal Exchange); The Human Voice (Gate); Zoo (Theatre 503); Shadows (Eurydice Speaks) (Schaubühne, Berlin). As Associate Sound Designer: Macbeth; Hedda Gabler (National Theatre UK & Ireland Tours); The Girl on the Train (West End/UK & Ireland Tour); The Hairy Ape (Park Avenue Armory, New York) Other sound work includes: Sound design for Bastille’s Doom Days Amazon Music album launch campaign; Binaural sound recordist for Opera North’s Aeons sound walk, as part of the Great Exhibition of the North 2018; Assistant sound designer on Land Rover’s binaural Discovery Adventures podcast.

Devika Ramcharan – Stage Manager

Devika is a Stage Manager in London and holds a BA in Theatre Practice: Stage Management from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Credits as SM on Book include: Blue Door (Ustinov at TRB), Kettle of Fish (The Yard), Ali and Dahlia (The Pleasance). As DSM: Can’t Wait for Christmas! (Orange Tree), Aladdin (Oxford Playhouse). As ASM: Wake (Birmingham Opera), Pity (Royal Court), Another World (NT), Les Miserables (Pimlico Opera), The Mother (Tricycle).

Nina Harding – Stage Manager

Nina studied Theatre: Writing, Directing and Performance at the University of York. Since graduating in 2017, she has worked as a Stage Manager in London. Credits include: Stage Manager-Props: A Small Place (Gate Theatre). Technical Assistant Stage Manager: Cinderella (The New Victoria Theatre), and Home Sweet Home (Tour). Assistant Stage Manager: Dido (Unicorn Theatre), and Dear Elizabeth (Gate Theatre). Stage Manager on The Book: Stripped (The Kings Head Theatre), Catherine and Anita (The Kings Head Theatre), Yokes Night (Theatre Royal Stratford East), and The Melting Pot (Finborough Theatre).

Lisa Connell – Fight Director

Lisa Connell is an APC qualified Stage Combat instructor, fight choreographer and Action Performer. She is a resident Stage Combat Teacher at PPA in Guildford and Northampton University. Recent Fight Direction includes: The Scarlet Pimpernel at the Everyman Theatre Cheltenham, Approaching Empty - Kiln Theatre London, Heathers The Musical - Theatre Royal Haymarket / The Other Palace, RSC- First Encounters Tours: Comedy of Errors and Julius Caesar. Currently in rehearsals with The Welsh National Opera of Bizet’s Carmen.

Amanda Ramasawmy – Design Assistant

Amanda is a scenographer and artist from London, working across performance design, installation and moving image mediums. She graduated from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in 2018 with a masters in Scenography. Previous to that she worked in film production design. She is currently part of Constellations, an artist residency focussed on exploring social-political issues, collaboration and activating public spaces. She’s most interested in finding non-traditional ways to communicate stories, particularly those from marginalised communities that are yet to be told.

Kaleya Baxe – Assistant Director

Kaleya Baxe is a writer, director and facilitator who studied the BA (Hons) in Drama, Applied Theatre and Education at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Previously, she has directed Patricia Gets Ready (White Bear Theatre), Deux Femme on the Edge de la Revolution (short, Roundhouse) and Wine Down (short, Theatre503). She has previously assisted on Radio (Arcola Theatre) and is currently training on the Young Vic’s Intro to Directing programme mentored by Roy Alexander Weise. Kaleya is also a recipient of the MGCFutures Assistant Director Bursary 2019. Her debut play Never Forget was recently staged at the Tristan Bates Theatre, John Thaw Studio as part of the Blacktress season.

Chris Campbell – Translator

Chris was Deputy Literary Manager of the National Theatre for six years and is currently Literary Manager of the Royal Court. He has translated plays by Philippe Minyana, David Lescot, Rémi de Vos, Adeline Picault, Magali Mougel, Launcelot Hamelin, Frédéric Blanchette, Catherine-Anne Toupin and Fabrice Roger-Lacan for The National, The Almeida, The Donmar, The Traverse, The Birmingham Rep and The Young Vic among others. His translation of Right Now was co-produced in 2016 by the Traverse, Bush and Ustinov theatres and in 2017, Oberon Books published a collection of his contemporary French translations. In 2014 Chris was appointed Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. As an actor Chris has worked at theatres including The National, The Royal Court, The Traverse, The West Yorkshire Playhouse, The Birmingham Rep, The Gate and English Touring Theatre. Directors have included Howard Davies, Sir Richard Eyre, Sir Peter Hall, Richard Wilson, William Gaskill, Erica Whyman, Stephen Daldry, Ian Brown and Annie Castledine. He most recently appeared alongside Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady.

Tammy Rose – Production Manager

No Bio

One of the most thought-provoking and enjoyable pieces of theatre I have seen in a long while

The Observer

Imaginative, ambitious, engaged, unpredictable and alive

The Times

Thrilling provocations in theatre’s fight against fascism

Evening Standard

[Leo] Bill is subtle and stinging in his stunning performance

Broadway World

A truly transformational night at the theatre

The Spy in the Stalls

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Production photo of Mephisto [A Rhapsody] showing people stood up and running around the space dimly lit against bright colourful LEDs

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The Gate’s 2019/20 season is generously supported by Cockayne – Grants for the Arts and the London Community Foundation.

Jerwood Designers is supported by Jerwood Arts.

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★★★★★ ‘One of the most thought-provoking and enjoyable pieces of theatre I have seen in a long while’ (The Observer)

Fascism. Resistance. Apathy.

In the town of Balbek the far right are about to seize power. At the local theatre Aymeric dreams of celebrity; Lucas longs for a liberal revolution; Michael is seduced by the extremists. Juliette Demba is in fear for her life.

As this political earthquake convulses society Aymeric must make his choice: resist the forces of hatred or harness them for his own success.

Directed by Kirsty Housley (The Encounter), Mephisto [A Rhapsody] is a searing contemporary response to Klaus Mann’s banned, and fiercely political cult novel. It is based on the real life story of Gustaf Gründgens whose dreams of fame led him to betray everything, and at the peak of his career, perform Faust for Hitler. Samuel Gallet’s urgent new play asks, what would you sacrifice to do the right thing?

Find out more about the story of Mephisto [A Rhapsody], read our blog here.

Read the interview with director Kirsty Housley

Read the rehearsal diary by Assistant Director Kaleya Baxe

Does Art Have the Power to Change the System? Our Artistic Director, Ellen McDougall speaks to cast members, Subika Anwar-Khan and Tamzin Griffin. Listen to our podcast here!

The Gate Theatre Company is a company limited by guarantee registered in England & Wales No. 1495543 – Charity No. 280278