A rare Monday evening visit to the theatre for us. I had booked the day out as a long weekend. Perhaps Janie had intended to do the same, but her diary shows that she treated some patients, engineering it that she ended up in the Kensington & Chelsea area.
We really liked the stuff that little Chelsea Theatre was putting on back then – it had a short flowering of producing the sort of unusual fringe theatre stuff that we like.
This play was basically a biographical piece about Kahlil Gibran, not least the birth of his great work, The Prophet.
This production was very much a family affair for the Sawalha family, with author Nadim appearing in the production, along with brother Nabil and a couple of other Sawalhas; Lara & Omar, in some cases doubling up, playing several smaller parts. Gerald Key played Gibran, Briony Glassco played Mary Haskell and Colin Redgrave directed the production.
This production was previewed in The Standard
Prophet Standard 27 Apr 2000, Thu Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
We rather liked the piece and performances. But then Janie had/has a bit of a thing about The Prophet. But 25 years later, I don’t think I’d get a positive answer if I suggested a Monday night at the theatre, even if the subject matter was close to Janie’s heart!
