Cast: Glengarry Hires Marsh & Freeman; EmperorDate: 31 July 2007
Matthew Marsh (pictured) and Paul Freeman will join the previously announced Jonathan Pryce and Aidan Gillen in James Macdonald’s 25th anniversary revival of David Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Glengarry Glen Ross (See News, 3 Jul 2007). The new production opens on 10 October 2007 (previews from 27 September) at the West End’s Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, where it’s initially booking until 12 January 2008.
In a real estate office in Chicago, the salesmen are pitched against each other in a cut-throat competition. Close the deal and you’ve won a Cadillac; blow the lead and you’re f...ed. In a world of high stakes and hard sell, these men will do anything, legal or otherwise, to sell the most.
Matthew Marsh, who plays Dave Moss, was last seen in the West End at the same address co-starring with Jonathan Pryce in the 2004 UK premiere of Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, which transferred from the Almeida Theatre. His other recent stage credits include The Lightning Play, Conversations after a Burial (also at Almeida), The Overwhelming (National), Copenhagen (NT and West End), Little Foxes (Donmar Warehouse) and US and Them (Hampstead). On screen, he’s been seen in TV’s Spooks, The Commander, Hawking and Wall of Silence, and the films Beyond Friendship, Spy Game and Dirty Weekend.
Paul Freeman, who plays George Aaronow, has appeared in Art and Orpheus Descending in the West End, as well as Plenty, The Women, A Fair Quarrel (National), Hamlet, Cymbeline (RSC), Tooth of Crime, No End of Blame (Royal Court) and The Cutting (Bush). His screen credits include Hot Fuzz, The Long Good Friday, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Stroke of Genius and The Dogs of War on film, and New Street Law, Death of a Princess and Life of Shakespeare on television.
Glengarry Glen Ross premiered at the National Theatre in 1983 and was subsequently produced on Broadway and adapted, by Mamet, for a 1992 film starring Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey, Ed Harris, Al Pacino and Alec Baldwin as well as Jonathan Pryce, who now takes on the part of on-the-waydown salesman Shelley Levene (played by Lemmon in the film). On stage, Aidan Gillen plays Ricky Roma (Pacino on screen).
The rest of the seven-strong, all-male company comprises Shane Attwooll (as Baylen), Anthony Flanagan (John Williamson) and Tom Smith (James Lingk, Pryce’s screen role). The production is designed by Anthony Ward, with lighting by Howard Harrison. It’s presented by Mark Rubinstein Limited.
In other play casting updates, further details have been confirmed for the National Theatre’s remounting of Thea Sharrock’s critically acclaimed 2005 Gate hit The Emperor Jones, the final production in this year’s Travelex £10 Season in the NT Olivier.
Paterson Joseph recreates his title performance in a company that will also include John Marquez (Market Boy, The Hypochondriac, The Anniversary, Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads), Dwayne Barnaby, Adrian Christopher, Olivette Cole-Wilson, Yemi Goodman-Ajibade, Brooks Livermore, Rex Obano, Daniel Poyser, Leroy Ricardo-Jones, Corinne Skinner Carter and Jonathan Taylor.
Faced with revolt, the delusional ‘Emperor’ - an American ex-convict who has connived his way into a dictatorship over a remote West Indies island - escapes to the dark forest where the searing heat and ominous pulse of his trackers’ drums take their toll. The revival of Eugene O'Neill’s rarely staged 1921 drama is being reconceived for the transfer from the intimate 70-seat Gate to the NT’s expansive 1,100-seat Olivier auditorium, where it runs in rep from 28 August 2007 (previews from 22 August).
- by Terri Paddock
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