Park Slope's own Patrick Stewart returning to Broadway... with Ian McKellen!

Exciting news for our favorite Park Slope All-Star, Patrick Stewart! Word on the street is, he'll be joining his bestie Ian McKellen on Broadway this fall in a two-play repertory of Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. 

If you don't know anything about either of those plays, then let me pull out my B.A. in Theater and fill you in. The two classic tragicomedies have a lot in common. For one, they both take place in these weird nondescript worlds where time, memory, and reality are unreliable. For another, they both deal with two strangers (friends?) who are in said world, stuck, waiting for something to happen. Dudes spend their entire time in both plays hanging around, talking a whole bunch about life while nothing really happens. And at some point in both shows, two other dudes come into the story and disrupt the action while not really changing anything. It's like when you're standing in line at the 9th Street CVS for what feels like hours, wondering why you haven't moved an inch and if you'll ever get out of there. It's classic extenstialism! Two long, boring, drab plays that remind you how long and boring your life is. How much fun!

The play will run in rotation at a theater to be determined, and will be directed by fellow brit Sean Mathias. No dates have been announced yet, but Stewart and McKellen are clearly enough of a draw here that producers shouldn't have a time getting space. 

Stewart and McKellen have worked together in the past - most notably in the X-Men film franchise (What up, Professor X and Magneto?). They did Godot in the West End in 2009, and will do No Man's Land this summer. They're also both, like, award-winning Shakespearian actors. Dudes make Billy S seem hella cool. In Godot, Stewart will play Valdimir and Mckellen will play Estragon, while No Man's Land will have Stewart as Hirst and McKellen as Spooner.

That's all well and good, but I'm more interested to see Stewart and McKellen walking around the hood after rehearsals/performances. Can't you see it now? The two sharing some fish and chips at Chip Shop? Picnics in Prospect Park? Window shopping down 7th Avenue? Yogurts from Culture, perhaps? And am I the only one who wants to see McKellen scream "YOU SHALL NOT PASS" to some breeders and their baby carriages, trying to get into Back Horse for a beer? That would be amazing!

Oh Oh Oh! Or maybe Ian can just move into the neighborhood! We have real estate openings! And a boring ass gay bar that he'd probably like. Come on Ian! There's no membership fee at the YMCA right now!