be philosophical about it. I’ve always made things happen for
myself if I wanted them, and I didn’t with this. But I’m very
maternal within my work. I send people presents and emoji
texts and love hearts. It’s all personal to me.”
As Rylance puts it, “Her plays are like her children, and
the way she runs her office—she has a bunch of youngsters
in there. For a long time Sonia was a little lonely. She was so
busy, and things didn’t work out with the people she knew.
But now she has the most wonderful partner in Joe.”
So tell me about Joe, I say to her. A blush creeps up from
her chest to her cheeks.
“Oh! Well, it’s an unusual relationship in lots of ways. He’s
younger than me.”
That’s not a big deal, I say.
“Whatever age gap you’re thinking, double it.”
Ten years?
“Double it again.”
Twenty?
“And more,” she says.
We both pause.
Well, get you! I say.
“Quite!” she hoots.
Poet and writer Joe Murphy is, it eventually emerges, 25
years younger than Friedman. They met in 2012 through the
director Stephen Daldry, when Daldry was staying at Fried-
man’s house, a converted pub in East London, while supervis-
ing the 2012 Olympics ceremonies nearby. “And Joe started
hanging around and, well, bit by bit, you know . . . It’s been
three years, which is not bad for me. I find it hard to make it
beyond five years in a relationship, so we’ll see,” she says.
When I meet Friedman at the after-party for the first night
of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Imelda Staunton is there
calmly greeting guests, but Friedman is visibly quivering with
nerves about the newspaper reviews, which will be online
shortly. “But it was amazing,” she says, allowing herself a
moment of satisfaction over a job well done. She is looking
pretty amazing herself, in a 1970s-style Sonia Rykiel velvet
jumpsuit that plunges almost to her belly button. Modesty
is retained with a black Armani tuxedo jacket.
I can’t believe this is just one of your eleven shows, I say.
“No, no—fourteen,” she corrects me. “We took on three
more today—ha-ha-ha! Go talk to Joe!” she orders as she
heads off to mingle, and I am introduced to Friedman’s boy-
friend, who is talking with some of the play’s investors. With
his feathered brown hair and Bambi-size eyes, he is boy-band
cute, with an earnest manner and a soft voice that makes you
lean in close. I can see all too well how things began, bit by
bit. “She’s a genius, she really is,” he says, his eyes instinctively
scanning the bar for her.
Friedman has no time to talk, because the reviews are just
coming in: five stars from the broadsheets! She punches the
air and treats herself to a drink. As I leave, I see her talking
earnestly to another investor, eating canapés and drinking
champagne. She seems happy enough. But she looked like
she was having a lot more fun backstage at the theaters.
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU
The cast of George Orwell’s 1984, on Broadway this month.
FROM FAR LEFT: Tom Sturridge, Olivia Wilde, and
Reed Birney. Hair, Shon; makeup, Yumi Lee. Menswear Editor:
Michael Philouze. Details, see In This Issue.
Sittings Editor: Phyllis Posnick.
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