“I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter,” famously remarked Winston Churchill (1874-1965), one of the most prominent and imposing British statesmen, with his characteristic self-irony and sarcasm.
He was a man of many layers: a whiskey drinker and a Cuban cigar aficionado, an early visionary of the European Union, the orator who coined the term “Iron Curtain,” and a Nobel Prize laureate in Literature (1953) for his nation-inspiring speeches and memoirs. A true self-made man – he transformed from a boy with a stutter into a decisive strategist, never renouncing his human weaknesses.
American actor and playwright Ronald Keaton’s play, Churchill, is a mosaic of memories that invites the audience into Winston Churchill’s inner world. While indulging in his passion for painting, Churchill constructs his own subjective biography, where world-shaping historical events stand alongside deeply personal, intimate moments.
“Ronald Keaton’s play is an emotional story of a historical figure and the role of an individual in an era of global geopolitical shifts. Parallels with today’s events allow us to view the present through the filter of history. It is a candid conversation about the end of a politician’s life, about aging, and about his political legacy,” says director Reinis Suhanovs.
