JF is on stage again. I found out about it by chance (thanks to Flo and some Jonathan Firth official ? FB page, where Jon's message was published: "I will be at the Sheffield Crucible this autumn playing Polixenes in Shakespeare's Winters Tale. It runs from the 2nd October to 2nd November").
The full cast is not announced, except Daniel Lapaine, who will lead the cast as Leontes and newly-graduated Eva Feiler, who has landed her first professional role as Emilia in the "Winter's Tale". This play director Paul Miller said, that "the cast for The Winter's Tale is looking terrific: seasoned colleagues and fresh delights".
Jonathan will perform at the Sheffield Crucible playing Polixenes in Shakespeare's Winter's Tale from Wednesday 2 October -Saturday 2 November. Directed by Associate director Paul Miller. All the information you need (such as, dates, times and tickets) is available here: http://www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk/event/the-winters-tale-13/ or here:
Years ago Jonathan was a voice of Florizel (Polixenes's only son and heir) in the animated version of this Shakespeare play, now he's playing Polixenes, The King of Bohemia, on stage. That's great!
I'm sure many of you have read this play. But if you want to reread it, here is a nice page:
And here you can find all lines for Polixenes in "Winter's Tale":
In short: Polixenes - The King of Bohemia, and Leontes's boyhood friend. King Leontes of Sicilia is seized by sudden and terrible jealousy of his wife Hermione, whom he accuses of adultery. He believes the child Hermione is bearing to have been fathered by his friend Polixenes, and when the baby girl is born he orders her to be taken to some wild place and left to die. Leontes' cruelty has terrible consequences, but Hermione's child escapes death, and is brought up as a shepherdess.
Jon's character Polixenes appears to be the good guy who's wronged by his friend. Polixenes, after all, is pretty loyal to Leontes, he's nice to Hermione and he really values his friendship with Camillo. But if early in the play Polixenes becomes the victim of tyranny, later he becomes tyrannical himself (would love to see Jon playing this character!). When Polixenes finds out that his only son, Prince Florizel, is engaged to Perdita (who is actually a princess) he goes crazy, threatening to 1) have Perdita's face disfigured with branches and 2) have her old man executed. That makes Polixenes's character a literary foil to Leontes.
So... if more information will be published later, I'll pass it to you :)
