Placebo are to compose the music for The Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Bertolt Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui.
The band have written the music for the play which stars double Olivier award-winning and The League Of Gentlemen actor Mark Gatiss. It will make its debut in the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, from April 11 to May 30. You can purchase tickets here.
The announcement marks Placebo’s first major theatre collaboration to date.
Frontman Brian Molko and bassist Stefan Olsdal said in a statement: “We are very honoured and excited to be collaborating with the Royal Shakespeare Company for the first time to create the soundtrack to The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht. Thematically, this cautionary tale from history feels more urgent & prescient than ever, and its relevance to today’s world is very chilling.”
They added: “The creative process for this project was very different for us, sometimes akin to shooting arrows in the dark. So we tried to connect with the psychology of the outsider, as well as taking inspiration from themes of power, alienation and moral decay – which are at the core of this play.
“We are elated by the thought that Placebo’s newest music will be performed nightly at the Swan Theatre and we can only hope that we have done this great play justice.”
Directed by Seán Linnen the play is set in the “back alleys of Chicago’s criminal underworld” and offers a “blistering satire on Hitler’s ascent to power and a chilling warning from history which continues to echo down the centuries”.
‘Placebo are one of the most daring, original and imaginative rock bands in history so it is unbelievably thrilling they’ve come on board to write a brand-new soundtrack for our production of Bertolt Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui this spring. Music is an essential part of Brecht’s plays and having Brian and Stefan’s glitteringly expansive, darkly seductive and deeply theatrical score played live on stage in the Swan theatre each night is going to be completely exhilarating for our audiences,” said Linnen.
“As the threat from the far-right grows daily at home and abroad, it is our job as artists to speak up and out. There is no other play that interrogates the political moment we are living through more than this one, and I’m so lucky to have such fearless and formidable collaborators as Brian Molko, Stefan Olsdal and Mark Gatiss in bringing this production to life.”
Elsewhere, Placebo recently teased some “significant” plans to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their self-titled debut studio album, and were confirmed as part of Robert Smith’s epic Teenage Cancer Trust line-up, alongside Garbage, Wolf Alice, Manic Street Preachers, Chvrches, My Bloody Valentine and more.
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