The Forsyte Saga Parts 1 & 2

adapted for the stage

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Pub Date 23 Oct 2024 | Archive Date Not set

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Description

London, 1886. Wealthy solicitor Soames Forsyte is a man of property, and his beautiful wife Irene is his most prized possession. When he commissions an architect to build a house for her, the cracks in their marriage begin to show until a shocking incident tears the Forsyte family apart. Years later, Soames’ daughter, Fleur, is haunted by the family secret as history begins to repeat itself…

John Galsworthy’s classic story The Forsyte Saga is newly dramatized in two parts by Shaun McKenna and Lin Coghlan, bringing the unheard female voices to the fore for the first time. Spanning forty years from the last gasp of the Victorian age to the beginning of the roaring 1920s, this is an epic tale of sex, money and power.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

John Galsworthy (1867-1933)

Born in Kingston-on-Thames and educated at Harrow, Galsworthy studied law at Oxford where he joined the Drama Society. While his father was alive he published under a pseudonym, considering The Island Pharisees (1904) to be his first major work. In 1906, he married Ada Galsworthy who encouraged his writing. He had success with The Man of Property (1906) which began the series known as The Forsyte Saga. After the First World War he resumed work on the series with In Chancery (1920) and To Let (1921) followed by The White Monkey (1924), The Silver Spoon (1926), and Swan Song (1928), with its two interludes A Silent Wooing and Passersby (1927) collected in A Modern Comedy (1929). On Forsyte Change (1930) was a collection of short stories. Galsworthy’s other novels include The Country House (1907), The Patrician (1911) and The Freelands (1915).

He was also well-known as a playwright, writing twenty-eight plays. He explored social issues such as class discrimination in the courts in The Silver Box (1906) produced at the Royal Court Theatre, and Strife (1909) about an unofficial strike. His play, Justice (1910), led to prison reform. Galsworthy’s horror at the carnage of the First World War was expressed in The Mob (1914), and the conflict between new and old money is dramatised in The Skin Game (1920). Galsworthy won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1932 and died the following year.

A 1967 BBC TV adaptation of The Forsyte Saga was immensely popular both in the UK and abroad. It was again serialised by ITV in 2002. Shaun McKenna and Lin Coghlan adapted the novels for BBC Radio 4 in 2016 under the title The Forsytes before adapting them for the stage.

Shaun McKenna – Adapter

Theatre includes The Lord of the Rings – A Musical Tale for which he won a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best Musical and was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Musical (Watermill Theatre, Newbury, Theatre Royal Drury Lane and International Tour), Exhibitionists (King’s Head Theatre), The Return of Peter Pan (Theater Regensburg), Maddie (New York Theater Festival and Lyric Theatre), Ladies in Lavender for which he won a BroadwayWorld UK Award for Best Regional Play (Royal and Derngate Theatres, Northampton and National Tour), Lautrec (Shaftesbury Theatre), Last Dance (York Theatre, New York City), Heidi and Heidi and Johanna for which he was nominated for a Prix Walo Award (Walenstadt), Ben Hur Live (O2 Arena) and La Cava (Victoria Palace Theatre and Piccadilly Theatre).

Film/TV includes The Crooked Man; Like Father Like Son.

Radio includes Eleanor Rising, Home Front which won a BBC Audio Drama Award for Outstanding Contribution to Radio Drama, The Forsytes and The Complete Smiley.

Lin Coghlan – Adapter

Theatre includes Flock, Mercy and Waking (Soho Theatre), Kingfisher Blue (Bush Theatre), Apache Tears for which she won the Peggy Ramsay Award (Clean Break), The Miracle (National Theatre), Bretevski Street (Theatre Centre) and The Night Garden (National Theatre Studio and Northcott Theatre, Exeter).

Film/TV includes First Communion Day for which she won the Dennis Potter Play of the Year Award, Electric Frank for which she won a Leopard of Tomorrow Award at Toronto Film Festival, Some Dogs Bite for which she won the Audience Award at Nantes Film Festival and Patrick’s Planet.

Radio includes Tales of the City, Les Miserables, The Country Girls, Clayhanger, The Fortunes of War, Mansfield Park, The Cazelets, Ethan Frome, The Forsytes, The Misunderstanding and North and South.

London, 1886. Wealthy solicitor Soames Forsyte is a man of property, and his beautiful wife Irene is his most prized possession. When he commissions an architect to build a house for her, the cracks...


Advance Praise

https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/reviews/the-forsyte-saga-parts-1-and-2-review-park-theatre ****

"...an exhilarating shared experience, in which the audience travels on a journey through four decades of an upper-middle-class nouveau riche family’s tangled history (from 1886 to 1927), and, in the breathing space between acts, become collectively bonded in a way that rarely occurs at a usual two-act show."


https://www.whatsonstage.com/news/the-forsyte-saga-parts-1-and-2-at-the-park-theatre-review_1643445/

" This stripped-back telling concentrates Galsworthy’s rich story which pivots around the tragically ill-matched relationship between the upright Soames Forsyte and his wife Irene – a doomed passion (on his side) and an imprisonment (on hers) – into an examination of how unhappiness can spread through generations...They bring an entire world to life – an epic in miniature." ****

https://www.thereviewshub.com/the-forsyte-saga-parts-1-and-2-park-theatre-london/

 "It offers as satisfying a conclusion as could be hoped for from two plays that offer a distillation of such a sprawling epic. Either one of Mckenna and Coghlan’s plays would make for a satisfying evening of theatre; taken together, they are nothing short of a triumph." *****

https://www.broadwayworld.com/westend/article/Review-THE-FORSYTE-SAGA-PARTS-1-2-Park-Theatre-20241021

"There are so many moments of wonder throughout Part 1 and 2, with cyclical repeated themes of wealth, status, honour, the manipulation of those in power with legal knowledge, seeking fatally unwanted connections and an unhealthy and tragic desire for beauty. The historic stories are woven into the properties, the steady and peaceful oak tree and the dynamic split between the two sides of the Forsyte family. The Forsyte Saga Part 1 and 2 is irresistibly brooding and masterfully paced. Destined for a West End transfer and wholly deserving of its foreseeable critical praise." *****

https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/reviews/the-forsyte-saga-parts-1-and-2-review-park-theatre ****

"...an exhilarating shared experience, in which the audience travels on a journey through four decades...


Marketing Plan

Plays run at The Park Theatre, Finsbury Park for 9 weeks.

Reviews in national newspapers, radio interviews, editorial features etc.

Plays run at The Park Theatre, Finsbury Park for 9 weeks.

Reviews in national newspapers, radio interviews, editorial features etc.


Available Editions

EDITION Paperback
ISBN 9781910798669
PRICE £12.99 (GBP)
PAGES 230

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Featured Reviews

This was a really great idea, I enjoyed how this was adapted for the stage. The characters were everything that I was looking for and enjoyed the overall world that was created in this. This had that element that I was expecting from the original book and enjoyed the way this was written.

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The first book in the FORSYKE SAGA was published in 1906, there are 5 volumes in the saga. I read all of them too many years ago to admit to and have reread them several times, as they are some of my favorite titles in a personal library that has grown and been added to for 50 years. This edition is a shortened, modernized version adapted for stage, but it's still a great story and probably easier for those not familiar with teh era to read. As you read, you'll recognize many pieces of the story that have been included in so many of the large ensemble productions of the era. The saga is so well worth your time, read at your leisure, it's meant to enjoyed as a life's journey.

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