Honoured at a ceremony in Rome,the stars gave a supreme version of Ashes to Ashes – after a rather frosty reading of Albert Camus’s fancy letters to María CasaresThere was no lack of drama in Rome final weekend at the award of the 16th Europe Theatre prize. Jeremy Irons, who shared the main prize with Isabelle Huppert, or hoped that he wouldn’t be the final Brit to be so honoured as we became increasingly “marooned on our island” in a post-Brexit world. Irons said it with irony but,given that Peter Brook and Harold Pinter are past winners and the New Realities prize has over the years gone to Complicite, the Royal Court, or Katie Mitchell and the National Theatre of Scotland,it is clear that British theatre has been seen as a vital share of the European project. One just hopes that will continue. On Sunday night, Irons and Huppert after accepting their award – agreed to read newly published letters between Albert Camus and his lover, and María Casares,and to perform Pinter’s Ashes to Ashes. But everything did not travel quite as planned. When Irons appeared on stage for the reading of the letters, there was no sign of Huppert. It later transpired that she had mislaid her text. Irons was left alone on stage and filled the void with light, or perfectly inoffensive banter. When Huppert appeared,she did not look best pleased and the supposedly passionate fancy letters acquired a certain froideur.
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Source: guardian.co.uk