NT : Archive : Archive Collection : Production Photographs
Production Photographs
Taken at dress rehearsal the production photographs in our collection comprise a unique record of the performance history at the National Theatre. A production photographer is chosen by the director of each production to take official photographs. The photographs will then feature in press reviews, profiles of actors and directors, the National's own publicity material and eventually will be deposited in the Archive where they are given appropriate storage conditions and made available to researchers. The Archive currently holds photographs of productions up to the end of 2001. Prints are mainly black and white, but also include some colour photographs and 35mm colour transparencies.
Individual photographers retain the copyright for their production photographs. The archive does not sell photographs, not any material, and photographs may only be reproduced with the permission of the photographer. A selection of production photographs in postcard form is available from the bookshop.
Macbeth
by William Shakespeare, translation by Yushi Odajima, directed by Yukio Ninagawa, Lyttelton 1987.
Part of a Ninagawa Company double bill with Euripides' Medea.
Masane Tsukayama as Macbeth and Komaki Kurihara as Lady Macbeth. Photo John Haynes.
“We are trying to create something in between the styles of Japanese theatre and European realism. We are trying to absorb from Western culture and then create by criticizing and breaking down what we have in Japanese traditional theatre. We are trying to create something totally new from the debris.”
Yukio Ninagawa to Michael Billington in the National's International Theatre programme 1987.
Equus
by Peter Shaffer, Old Vic 1973.
Peter Firth as Alan Sharp in Equus, 1973 at the Old Vic. Photo Zöe Dominic.
Ardua cervix / Argutumque caput, brevis alvus, obesaque terga, / Luxuriatque toris animosum pectus (His neck is high an erect, his head replete with intelligence, his belly short, his back full, and his proud chest swells with hard muscle) - Vergil: Georgics.
The Dance of Death
by August Strindberg, Old Vic 1969.
Lawrence Oliver as Edgar. Photo Zöe Dominic.
'After the set calls the audience clapped and called for more. We gave one more general call then one with Sir Lawrence, joined by Miss McEwan and Ms Lang. Sir Lawrence said a brief "Thank you and Goodnight." It was all overwhelming and flowers were thrown onstage' Stage Manager's report for 25 July 1969, final performance.
Richard III
By William Shakespeare, Lyttelton 1990.
Ian McKellen as Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Photo John Haynes.
'Ion Caramitru, who played Hamlet last year at the Lyttelton with his Bulandra Theatre, rode the tank which led the charge on Ceausescu's television station. For him and his countrymen our Richard III was an important event. At the death of the medieval tyrant, our audience stopped the performance to applaud and cheer in recognition, keeping faith with the recent drama in their own lives.' Ian McKellen in the Richard III programme on the National Theatre's visit to Romania.
Othello
by William Shakespeare, Old Vic 1964.
Lawrence Olivier as Othello and Maggie Smith as Desdemona. Photo Angus McBean.
Franco Zeffirelli on Olivier's performance: “its an anthology of everything that has been discovered about acting in the last three centuries. It's grand and majestic, but it's also modern and realistic. I would call it a lesson for us all,” quoted by Kenneth Tynan's essay Olivier: The Actor and the Moor in Othello, Rupert Hart Davis, London 1966; edited by Kenneth Tynan.
Jumpers
by Tom Stoppard, Lyttelton 2003
Simon Russell-Beale as George Moore and Essie Davis as Dotty. Photo Catherine Ashmore.
Bones -"Who are these acrobats?"
George - "Logical positivists, mainly, with a linguistic analyst or two, a couple of Benthamite Utilitarians... lapsed Kantians and empiricists generally... and of course the usual Behaviourists... a mixture of the more philosophical members of the university gymnastics team and the more gymnastic members of the Philosophy School."
Tom Stoppard's Jumpers premiered for the National at the Old Vic in 1972, and played in the Lyttelton in 1976.