Elliott & Daniels Team up for Thérèse Raquin???
Date: 21 July 2006
More immediately at the National Theatre, Marianne Elliott, who scored a hit last November with Samuel Adamson’s new version of Ibsen’s 1877 moral thriller Pillars of the Community, will return this autumn to direct another rarely seen classic in the NT Lyttelton, Emile Zola’s 19th-century tale of lust, murder and retribution, Thérèse Raquin. Unhappily married to Camille, Thérèse embarks on a passionate affair with the couple’s lodger Laurent, with whom she conspires to murder her husband, under the very nose of his doting mother. The successful deed sets in motion a chain of nightmarish consequences for the guilt-ridden culprits. Zola was first to adapt his 1867 novel for the stage, in an 1873 play that also scandalised French society of the time. Versions since include English composer Michael Finnissy’s 1992 opera; Peter Flannery’s 2005 play The Bodies, which relocated the story to Victorian Tyneside (See News, 22 Jun 2005); and various films, including one soon to be released starring Glenn Close as Madame Raquin. The National will employ Nicholas Wright's 1990 translation of Zola's play. No word yet on who’ll land the plum female roles in Elliott’s new production, but Ben Daniels is signed up to play the dastardly Laurent. Daniels has most recently been seen on stage in The Wild Duck and The God of Hell at the Donmar Warehouse, while his previous NT credits include Iphigenia at Aulis, Three Sisters and All My Sons, for which he won both an Olivier and a Whatsonstage.com Theatregoers’ Choice Award for Best Supporting Actor. On screen, he’s been seen in Doom, Conspiracy, Beautiful Thing and three series of Cutting It, amongst others.
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