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Weisz Returns to West End with Shape of Things

British film actress Rachel Weisz will follow her friend and former co-star Anna Friel into a stage stint at a converted bus shelter at King's Cross in London. Weisz will star in the world premiere of Neil LaBute's latest play, The Shape of Things, as part of the Almeida season at the temporary venue. Friel is currently starring in Lulu, the season opener which finishes its run there on 12 May. The Shape of Things opens on 30 May (previews from 24 May) and continues until 23 June 2001.

Weisz plays an art student in the play which peels back the skin of two modern relationships. How far would you go for love? How far for art? What would you be willing to change? Which price might you pay?

This will be Weisz's third West End appearance. She has previously appeared in Noel Coward's Design for Living at the Donmar Warehouse and, in 1999, starred in Tennessee Williams' Suddenly Last Summer at the Comedy. Weisz is best known for her film roles, including the just-released Enemy at the Gates, The Mummy, Stealing Beauty and Land Girls, in which she co-starred with Friel.

The Almeida last year presented the British premiere of LaBute's bash, a collection of three one-act pieces. His previous plays include Filthy Talk for Troubled Times, Sanguinarians and Sycophants, Rounder and Ravages. His films include In The Company of Men (for which he received the New York Critics' Circle Best First Feature Award and the Filmmakers' Trophy at the Sundance Film Festival), Your Friends and Neighbors and Nurse Betty. LaBute's most recent film, Possession, based on AS Byatt's novel, will be released later this year.

LaBute will also direct The Shape of Things at the Almeida. The production is designed by Giles Cadle, with costume design is by Lynette Meyer, lighting by Mark Henderson and sound by Fergus O'Hare.

The Almeida is in residence at the King's Cross converted bus depot for the next year while its home in Islington, north London, undergoes a £4m refurbishment. Other upcoming productions in the King's Cross season include a new version of Chekhov's Platonov by David Hare, Brian Friel's Faith Healer and a production of King Lear.

- by Terri Paddock

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