Robert Icke's stage adaptation of the film about a Stasi officer spying on a playwright and his actress in East Berlin, with Keira Knightley.
The Lives of Others opened at the Adelphi Theatre on 14 October, and it's running through to 9 January in a strictly limited run. It's Robert Icke's new stage adaptation of Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's Academy Award-winning film, and this is the first time the story has ever been told on stage.
The play is set in East Berlin in 1984. It follows a Stasi officer ordered to spy on a playwright and his actress partner, and as he listens in, he gradually gets drawn into their lives. It leans on the real history of the Stasi, East Germany's secret police, and their surveillance of writers and artists during the Cold War, so it spends a fair amount of time on artistic censorship and the relationship between art and politics. The original film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the BAFTA for Best Film Not in the English Language, and the César Award for Best Foreign Film.
On stage, Icke uses a revolving set, a new score by Max Richter, and video to bring that sense of surveillance into the room. Keira Knightley returns to the stage as Christa-Maria Sieland, her first time doing so in eleven years. She's joined by Stephen Dillane as Gerd Wiesler and Luke Thompson as Georg Dreyman, with Icke writing and directing. The whole thing runs two hours and ten minutes with no interval, and it's recommended for ages 14 and over.
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Tickets start at £25, with no booking fees and a £2 restoration levy included in all prices. Performances run Monday to Saturday at 7.30pm, with 2.30pm matinees on select Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. The Adelphi is on the Strand, WC2R 0NS.
