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Midnight's Children on Broadway
Rushdie's classic beats Bombay Dreams in hitting New York
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Arthur J Pais
Mumbai will be on the New York stage before Andrew Lloyd Webber takes his smash London hit Bombay Dreams to Broadway.
The Royal Shakespeare Company Production and novelist Salman Rushdie will present their production based on Rushdie's classic Midnight's Children, at the famed Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York. Rushdie has long been trying to get a film or a television movie based on his wise, pulse-quickening, grand novel.
About the horrors of the partition of a nation and the price people pay for nationalistic passions, the novel was published in 1980 and made Rushdie one of the world's most respected literary figures. Among the many awards the book brought him, the Booker Prize is the most famous.
The epic which, despite its multi-layered plot, is a quick read, has sold over a million copies in England and America and has been translated into over 20 languages.
Now, a stage version of Midnight's Children will open in London in mid-January. A humanities festival, with 25 events that will be held in New York to coincide with the show, will feature Pulitzer Prize winners and Oscar nominated directors.
In New York, there will be 12 performances from March 21 through March 30, following the premier of the show at Ann Arbor, Michigan. The show is produced with participation from Columbia University and the University of Michigan. It is perhaps the first collaboration between American universities and a British theater company.
Professor Edward Said, one of the world's leading thinkers, will join Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Cunningham and acclaimed short story writer Russell Banks to discuss the themes in the novel: displaced people, nationalism, communalism, loss of personal identity, questions of loyalty, but, above all, the possibility of redemption.
Also participating in the 25 dialogue and panel debates are novelist Vikram Chandra and philosopher Homi Bhabha. Director Mira Nair will curate a film programme on issues that the novel raises.
Apollo Theater
253 West 125th Street
Ticketmaster, 212.307.7171
www. MidnightsChildrenNYC.com