Antony Sher's enthralling account of the struggle - and the triumph - of bringing Primo Levi's Auschwitz memoir to the stage.
When Primo was first announced by the National Theatre, every performance sold out even before tickets went on sale to the general public. When the show opened in September 2004, Antony Sher's incarnation of a middle-aged Primo Levi recounting his year in Auschwitz was hailed as one of the most remarkable performances of recent years.
In Primo Time Antony Sher tells of his long-held ambition to find a way of adapting Primo Levi's book, If This is a Man, for the theatre. He tells of the difficult negotiations with the Primo Levi Estate, who were adamantly opposed to any stage or screen version of the book. He tells of research trips to Auschwitz and the house in Turin where Levi was born and where he died. And he tells of the workshops and rehearsals through which he built a performance and shaped a show that would remain utterly true to the book.
The two years that make up Primo Time also coincide with a troubling new factor in Sher's life as an actor. Early on in the book, he asks, 'If you're currently suffering from chronic stage fright, is it a good idea to write yourself a one-man show?' His battle to conquer what he calls The Fear offers valuable insights into an actor's life, as does his relationship with Primo's inspirational - but ruthless - director, Richard Wilson: 'Victor Meldrew without the laughs!' complains Sher at one point.
Primo Time is the story of a remarkable journey, often very dark, but also shot through with vital flashes of humour, culminating in a piece of theatre that goes a long way towards describing the indescribable.
'At the end of this remarkable performance there was a silence unlike any other I have experienced in the theatre' Daily Telegraph
'The performance has the precision, the unforgiving but humane objectivity of Levi's writing. This is acting of the purest and most unostentatious kind, unadorned by self-pity or visible virtuosity. This is theatre at its most human, most moral and least indoctrinating' Sunday Times
Author Biography:
Antony Sher (1949-2021) was a leading actor known for his stage performances, particularly with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He was also a highly respected author and artist.
Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Sher came to London in 1968, and trained at the Webber Douglas Academy. Much of his career was with the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he was an Associate Artist. He played Richard III, Macbeth, Leontes, Prospero, Shylock, Iago and Falstaff, as well as the leading roles in Cyrano de Bergerac, Tamburlaine the Great, The Roman Actor, Tom Stoppard's Travesties, Peter Flannery's Singer, Athol Fugard's Hello and Goodbye, and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
At the National Theatre he played the title roles in Primo (his own adaptation of Primo Levi's If This is a Man), Pam Gems's Stanley, Brecht's Arturo Ui, Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus (a co-production with the Market Theatre, Johannesburg), as well as Astrov in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and Jacob in Nicholas Wright's Travelling Light. In the West End, his roles included Arnold in Harvey Fierstein's Torch Song Trilogy, Muhammed in Mike Leigh's Goose-pimples, and Gellburg in Arthur Miller's Broken Glass. He played Freud in Terry Johnson's Hysteria at Bath's Theatre Royal and Hampstead Theatre.
Film and television appearances included Mrs Brown, Alive and Kicking, The History Man, Macbeth and J.G. Ballard's Home.
Following his debut as a writer with Year of the King (1985), an account of playing Richard III, he wrote four novels - Middlepost, Indoor Boy, Cheap Lives and The Feast - as well as other theatre journals, Woza Shakespeare! (co-written with his partner, the director Gregory Doran, who later became his husband) and Primo Time. His autobiography Beside Myself was published in 2001. His plays include I.D. (premiered at the Almeida Theatre, 2003) and The Giant (premiered at Hampstead Theatre, 2007).
He published a book of his paintings and drawings, Characters (1989), and held exhibitions of his work at the National Theatre, the London Jewish Cultural Centre, the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield and the Herbert Gallery in Coventry.
Among numerous awards, he won the Olivier Best Actor Award on two occasions (Richard III/Torch Song Trilogy and Stanley), the Evening Standard Best Actor Award (Richard III), and the Evening Standard Peter Sellers Film Award (for Disraeli in Mrs Brown). On Broadway, he won Best Solo Performer in both the Outer Critics' Circle and Drama Desk Awards for Primo. He held honorary Doctorates of Letters from the universities of Liverpool, Exeter, Warwick, and Cape Town. In 2000 he was knighted for his services to acting and writing.
Photograph of Antony Sher (c) Paul Stuart Photography Ltd
