“We dream big,” says a no-nonsense film executive early in “Lyonesse,” the starry, if overstuffed, new play that opened Wednesday night at the Harold Pinter Theater, in London.
And so, too, does this West End debut from Penelope Skinner, a British playwright whose works have long enlivened small theaters on both sides of the Atlantic.
The themes arrive thick and fast across nearly three hours: #MeToo, cancel culture, the tyranny of men and many others.
But not even Lily James and Kristin Scott Thomas, the production’s commercial draws, can transform the scattershot material into a coherent whole.
It takes courage to open a new play in the West End without a previous run somewhere else, but “Lyonesse” whimpers where it should roar.
Persons:
Harold Pinter, Penelope Skinner, Lily James, Kristin Scott Thomas, Ian Rickson —, James, Kate, doesn’t
Organizations:
Harold Pinter Theater
Locations:
“, London, British