Travelling Light

Antony Sher returns to the National to play Jacob in a new play by Nicholas Wright directed by Nicholas Hytner.

Nicholas Wright's new play is a funny and fascinating tribute to the Eastern European immigrants who became major players in Hollywood's golden age.

In a remote village in Eastern Europe, around 1900, the young Motl Mendl is entranced by the flickering silent images on his father's cinematograph. Bankrolled by Jacob, the ebullient local timber merchant, and inspired by Anna, the girl sent to help him make moving pictures of their villeage, he stumbles on a revolutionary way of story-telling. Forty years on, Motl – now a famed American film director – looks back on his early life and confronts the cost of fulfilling his dreams.