Part One � Voyage

The 18th Oct 2006 evening performance of The Coast of Utopia was cancelled when actor Richard Easton collapsed on stage before being rushed to hospital.

It is reported in the New York Times that the show was close to the end of its first act when Mr Easton, after delivering the line �You can�t go to Berlin!� to his son, played by Ethan Hawke, turned to make his exit, when he staggered and then collapsed.

The members of the cast on stage gathered around Mr Easton, before Mr Hawke turned and asked the audience if there was a doctor in the house. Stage management then repeated the request, before lowering the curtain and asking the audience to leave the auditorium.

Mr Easton, 73 years old, is conscious and said to be in a stable condition at St. Luke�s-Roosevelt Hospital Center where he is undergoing tests.

David Manis, Easton's understudy will perform the role tonight (19 Oct 2006).

Mr Easton won a Tony Award for his performannce as A.E. Houseman in The Invention of Love, also by Tom Stoppard which was also produced by the Lincoln Center Theatre in 2001.

The Coast of Utopia, Tom Stoppard's epic trilogy, is played in three parts. Part One � Voyage began its previews at the Vivian Beaumont on 17 Oct 2006, and is due to open on 5 Nov 2006.

The trilogy stars Brian F. O'Byrne (Alexander Herzen), Billy Crudup (Vissarion Belinsky ), Josh Hamilton (Nicholas Ogarev), Ethan Hawke (Michael Bakunin), Jason Butler Harner (Ivan Turgenev), Amy Irving (Varvara Bakunin / Maria Ogarev), Jennifer Ehle (Liubov Bakunin/Natalie Herzen/Malwida von Meysenbug), David Harbour (Nicholas Stankevich/George Herwegh/Doctor), and Martha Plimpton (Varenka Bakunin/Natasha Tuchkov/ Natasha Ogarev).

Beginning in mid-19th century Russia during the repressive reign of Tsar Nicholas I, the play spans a period of thirty years as it tells the story of a group of Russian intellectuals, headed by the radical theorist and editor Alexander Herzen, the novelist Ivan Turgenev, the literary critic Vissarion Belinsky and the aristocrat-turned-anarchist Michael Bakunin, who lead a band of like-minded countrymen in a revolutionary movement in which they strive to change and fix a political system by using their minds as their only weapon.

The action of The Coast of Utopia, which had its world premiere at London's National Theatre in 2002, begins in 1833 with -

Part One � Voyage, set in the Russian countryside as well as in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Part Two - Shipwreck, begins thirteen years later outside Moscow and follows the characters' exile to Paris, Dresden and Nice.

Part Three - Salvage, takes place over a period of twelve years in London and Geneva.

Lincoln Center Theater will mount the three parts of The Coast of Utopia individually, performing each part in turn as the next opens.

During the final three and one-half weeks of the production's run audiences will have the opportunity to see all three parts in succession. And on three Saturdays - 24 Feb 2007, 3 Mar 2007 and 10 Mar 2007 � theatergoers will be able to see all three - Voyage, Shipwreck and Salvage - in one-day marathons beginning at 11am.

The schedule for The Coast of Utopia is:

• Part One � Voyage
  Previews: Tue 17 Oct 2006
  Opens: Sun 5 Nov 2006
• Part Two � Shipwreck
  Previews: Tue 5 Dec 2006
  Opens: Thu 21 Dec 2006
• Part Three � Salvage
  Previews: Tue 30 Jan 2007
  Opens: Thu 15 Feb 2007