Pigott-Smith Does Donmar Hecuba, Lukis in CloacaDate: 5 August 2004
Further casting has now been announced for the Donmar Warehouse’s upcoming production of Hecuba. The new version of Euripides’ Greek tragedy about the devastation of war stars Clare Higgins – who won triple Best Actress honours (Evening Standard, Critics Circle, Olivier) for 2002’s Vincent in Brixton - in the title role and runs from 14 September to 13 November 2004 (previews from 9 September).
Troy has fallen to the Greeks, and Hecuba, its beloved queen, is widowed and enslaved. She mourns her great City and the death of her husband, but when fresh horrors emerge, her grief turns to rage and a lust for revenge.
Higgins is joined in the cast by Tim Pigott-Smith (Mourning Becomes Electra, The Iceman Cometh) as Agamemnon, Eddie Redmayne (currently in the West End in The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? as Polydorus, Finbar Lynch (To the Green Fields Beyond, Fool for Love, Not About Nightingales) as Polymestor, Alfred Burke (Nathan the Wise, TV’s Public Eye) as Talthybius, Susan Engel (Brand, A Passage to India) as the chorus and Kate Fleetwood (Medea, Love’s Labour’s Lost as Polyxena.
This new version of Hecuba is written by Frank McGuinness, whose 1998 version of Electra premiered at the Donmar before transferring to the West End and Broadway.
The new Donmar production is directed by former Almeida joint artistic director Jonathan Kent and designed by Paul Brown, with lighting by Mark Henderson, music by Nikola Kodjabashia and sound by Christopher Shutt.
The Donmar’s Hecuba is not to be confused with the RSC’s production of Hecuba, which stars Vanessa Redgrave and opens first at Stratford before transferring to the West End’s Albery Theatre in April 2005 (See News, 29 Mar & 15 Jul 2004).
Currently at the Donmar, Roger Michell’s revival of Harold Pinter’s Old Times - starring Jeremy Northam, Gina McKee and Helen McCrory – finishes its limited season on 4 September.
In other West End play casting news, Adrian Lukis (Dinner, The Relapse, Sleep With Me) completes the cast of Cloaca, the opening production in Kevin Spacey’s inaugural season as artistic director of the Old Vic (See News, 22 Apr 2004).
In the 2002 play by Dutch writer Maria Goos, four lifelong friends are reunited in middle age; their lives finely balanced between hope and disillusion. Spacey himself directs this British premiere production which also stars Hugh Bonneville, Neil Pearson, Stephen Tompkinson and Ingeborga Dapkunaite. Design is by Robert Jones, lighting by Mark Henderson and sound by Fergus O’Hare.
- by Terri Paddock
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