Theatre • 1983–2000

Theatre

From Another Country to the Donmar

The stage career that launched everything

The stage foundation

Overview

Colin left drama school (LAMDA) after one term to take the stage role that launched his career. The offer of Guy Bennett in Julian Mitchell’s Another Country at the Queen’s Theatre in 1983 was too good to refuse, and his instinct proved correct. The production and the performance put him on the map — and the years that followed saw him work with seriousness and ambition at some of Britain’s most important venues: the Old Vic, the Greenwich Theatre, the Almeida, and finally the Donmar Warehouse.

His theatre work in the 1980s and 1990s gave him the craft that underpins every screen performance. The discipline of live performance, the requirement to sustain a character night after night without the safety net of the edit, shaped an actor who has always been more interested in precision than effect. Stage work taught him what cinema later rewarded.

He has not appeared on stage since Three Days of Rain in 1999–2000 — a sold-out run at the Donmar Warehouse that was, characteristically, a demanding and structurally unusual play rather than any kind of star vehicle. The loss to theatre is film’s gain.

Stage Roles

Complete Theatre Filmography

1999–2000
Three Days of Rain
Donmar Warehouse, London
Ned / Walker

Richard Greenberg’s structurally intricate American play, in which two acts set thirty years apart feature the same actors playing both parents and their adult children. Firth takes the double role of Ned (the father, an architect, 1960) and Walker (his son, trying to understand the man he barely knew). A sold-out run directed by Sam Mendes at the finest small theatre in London. Firth’s last stage appearance to date.

1993
Chatsky
Almeida Theatre, London
Chatsky

Alexander Griboedov’s 1825 verse comedy — the Russian equivalent of a Restoration wit play — translated into English by Anthony Burgess. Firth plays the title character, a young man who returns to Moscow after years abroad and finds everything he once admired has grown complacent and corrupt. A witty, formally demanding performance in a play rarely attempted in English.

1991
The Caretaker
Comedy Theatre & touring
Aston

Harold Pinter’s landmark 1960 play about three men in a decaying room. Firth plays Aston, the gentle, damaged brother who invites the old tramp Davies in and builds a shed with meticulous, purposeless care. The production played the West End and also toured.

1987
Desire Under the Elms
Greenwich Theatre, London
Eben Cabot

Eugene O’Neill’s 1924 tragedy of desire and dispossession on a New England farm. Firth plays Eben Cabot, the youngest son who hates his father, loves his stepmother, and is destroyed by both.

1985
The Lonely Road
Old Vic, London
Felix

Arthur Schnitzler’s fin-de-siècle drama about a Viennese painter, the illegitimate son he failed to acknowledge, and the women he used and discarded. Playing Felix at the Old Vic, one of the most historic stages in Britain, was a significant step for the still-young Firth.

1983
Another Country
Queen’s Theatre, West End
Guy Bennett

Julian Mitchell’s play loosely based on the schooldays of spy Guy Burgess, imagining the moment when the English class system’s casual cruelties determined the future traitor. Firth left LAMDA after one term to take this role, replacing Rupert Everett when the production transferred to the Queen’s Theatre in the West End. He played alongside Rupert Everett in the original run, and the role launched his professional career. The film adaptation went back to Everett, but the stage performance announced a major actor.

Queen’s Theatre, West End The role that launched his career