Most of us won’t be able to pop across the pond to London this weekend to see what’s playing at the National Theatre. But if you can make it to Ann Arbor on Sunday, you’re in luck. The University Musical Society (UMS), in collaboration with the Michigan Theater, is offering a high-definition screening of Nicholas Wright’s Traveling Light. This Michigan Theatre screening is a delayed cinema broadcast (to accommodate time differences) of a live performance at the National Theatre.
Traveling Light is a light-hearted tribute to the Eastern European immigrants who became major players in Hollywood’s golden age. In a remote village in Eastern Europe, around 1900, the young Motl Mendl is entranced by the flickering silent images on his father’s cinematograph. Bankrolled by Jacob, the ebullient local timber merchant played by Antony Sher, and inspired by his assistant Anna, Motl stumbles on a revolutionary way of story-telling. Forty years on, Motl — now a famed American film director — looks back on his early life and confronts the cost of fulfilling his dreams.
There’s something happily ironic about watching a filmed recording of a play about the making of early silent films in a movie theatre that dates back to the silent era. For tickets to the screening of Traveling Light, or for additional information, contact the University Musical Society at 734-764-2538 or online. For tickets at the door, the Michigan Theater opens 90 minutes before the broadcast.
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