VIDEO: THE PRESENT's Cate Blanchett & Richard Roxburgh Play 'Who's Who' on GMA

By: Dec. 29, 2016
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Actors Cate Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh, both making their Broadway debuts in Anton Chekhov's The Present, stopped by this morning's GOOD MORNING AMERICA to discuss the show, now playing a limited engagement at the Barrymore Theatre through Sunday, March 19th.

"Someone else's mid-life crisis is always amusing," joked Blanchett of the the show's narrative. Said Roxburgh of making his Broadway debut, "It's a unique thing, a fantastic, remarkable feeling." Below, watch the actors play a game of "Who's Who" during the appearance!

The Sydney Theatre Company production of The Present began performances on Saturday, December 17 at 7:30pm. Andrew Upton's new adaptation of Anton Chekhov's first play, Platonov, The Present is directed by John Crowley and officially opens Sunday, January 8, 2017 at the Barrymore Theatre (243 West 47th Street) for a limited engagement through Sunday, March 19, 2017.

THE PRESENT features the Sydney Theatre Company cast including Cate Blanchett (Anna) and Richard Roxburgh (Mikhail), as well as Anna Bamford (Maria), Andrew Buchanan (Osip), David Downer (Yegor), Eamon Farren (Kirill), Martin Jacobs (Alexei), Brandon McClelland (Dimitri), Jacqueline McKenzie (Sophia), Marshall Napier (Ivan), Susan Prior (Sasha), Chris Ryan (Sergei) and Toby Schmitz (Nikolai).

Variously known as Platonov, Wild Honey, Fatherlessness and The Disinherited, Anton Chekhov's first play was not discovered until 1920, some 16 years after the playwright's death. Andrew Upton's adaptation is set post-Perestroika in the mid-1990s at an old country house where friends gather to celebrate the birthday of the independent but compromised widow Anna Petrovna (Blanchett). At the center is the acerbic and witty Platonov (Roxburgh) with his wife, his former students and friends and their partners. They may appear comfortable, but boiling away inside is a mess of unfinished, unresolved relationships, fuelled by twenty years of denial, regret and thwarted desire.

Cate Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh are making their Broadway debuts in The Present. They previously appeared together on the New York stage in Sydney Theatre Company's acclaimed production of Andrew Upton's adaptation of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. Additionally, Cate Blanchett appeared in New York in Sydney Theatre Company's productions of Hedda Gabler, A Streetcar Named Desire and The Maids.



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