Fleabag may have broken our hearts with its series finale, but we’ll be getting more of our favorite acerbic guinea pig cafe owner soon. Phoebe Waller-Bridge‘s original one-woman Fleabag stage show is coming to movie theaters across the country this September. So put on your Fleabag jumpsuits and get ready to kneel (in gratitude).
Before it was an Emmy-nominated TV series that launched a million Hot Priest gifs and helped sell out a particularly versatile jumpsuit, Fleabag was Phoebe Waller-Bridge, a chair, and an empty stage. Waller-Bridge debuted her incisive, sharply written one-woman stage play at the 2013 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, winning the Fringe First Award and skyrocketing the writer-actress to fame. The show went on to sell out runs in New York and London, and after the beloved BBC/Amazon TV series became a cultural phenomenon, Waller-Bridge revived the one-woman stage play, with her final performance set in London this September. Now, you can see the original Fleabag stage play in all its raw, cruel, unvarnished glory.
Entertainment Weekly reports that National Theatre Live, which regularly live broadcasts productions from the London stage (and occasionally from Broadway), is bringing the original Fleabag play to various movie theaters across the world. The shows in New York City and London have been sold out for months, but the acclaimed stage production as performed by Waller-Bridge from London’s Wyndham’s Theatre will be coming to theaters on September 12, 2019.
The original stage play hews closely to plot of the first season of Fleabag, following a young woman whose life spirals out of control as she wrestles with the grief and guilt over her best friend’s accidental’s death. She struggles to keep her guinea pig cafe afloat while butting heads with her family, including her pernicious step-mother and perfectionist sister. The nature of the stage play — which is essentially comprised of Waller-Bridge monologuing to the audience — amplifies the power of the fourth-wall breaks of the series, in all their witty asides, unseemly confessions, and raw truths.
But after the curtain drops and the applause fades, will we be left again with the gaping hole that the season 2 finale left in our hearts? Fear not: There is a forthcoming book featuring the scripts from seasons 1 and 2, as well as an afterword from Waller-Bridge. And if you’re really missing Fleabag, there’s always that French remake that I just found out exists. You’re welcome.
To find a showing near you and purchase tickets, check out the National Theatre Live website.
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