Theatre News

Ustinov announces Spring 2015 season

”The Harvest”, ”Outside Mullingar” and ”The Mother” will all play in their UK premieres at the Bath venue.

Lawrence Boswell who will direct The Mother as part of his Ustinov Studio spring season 2015.
Lawrence Boswell who will direct The Mother as part of his Ustinov Studio spring season 2015.

The Ustinov Studio, Bath has announced its spring 2015 season, which will comprise of three plays staged in the UK for the first time. The season, especially commissioned by the Ustinov Studio, will bring together three original plays, all of which are UK premieres; Pavel Pryazhko‘s The Harvest, John Patrick Shanley‘s Outside Mullingar and Florian Zeller‘s The Mother.

The Harvest opens the season (12th March to the 11th April) in a translation by Sarah Dugdale and is described in the press release as:

It’s harvest time and Egor, Valerii, Ira and Lubya are enjoying some hard graft in the orchard, picking apples and packing them into boxes. But, as the day progresses, what begin as tiny problems escalate into a complete shambles and total comic mayhem.

The Harvest sees the return of director Michael Boyd after the success of The Big Meal in the 2014 American Season at the Ustinov.

Following on will be Outside Mullingar (16th April-16th May) directed by Sam Yates, who is currently directing Jane Horrocks in East is East as part of the Jamie Lloyd season. It’s 2008 and the Reillys and the Muldoons are caught up in a bizarre feud over a contested strip of land that separates their two farms. When his father threatens to disinherit him, Anthony Reilly discovers that the beautiful and tenacious Aoife Muldoon holds the key to his future. So why is he so determined not to take it? Heartbreaking, funny and deeply moving, this is the journey of two obstinate individuals towards unity.

Shanley’s bittersweet romantic comedy has been acclaimed as his finest work since Doubt, the winner of both the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize in 2005. The Bronx-born author won an Academy Award for his screenplay of Moonstruck and also wrote the screenplay for the film Joe Versus the Volcano.

Concluding the season is The Mother (21st May-2oth June) by Florian Zeller and translated by Christopher Hampton (a companion piece to Zeller’s The Father, which is currently in previews at the Ustinov, in a play also translated by Hampton).

Anne loved that time in her life when she prepared breakfast each morning for her two young children, Sara and Nicholas. Now her children are grown and have lives and loves of their own. Spending hours alone, Anne has convinced herself that a weekend seminar in Dijon is a front for her husband Pierre’s affair.

Perhaps Nicholas and his girlfriend Elodie will break up and her favoured son will return. He will come down for breakfast, she will put on her new red dress and they will go out. After all, tomorrow is Mother’s Day…

Casting and further creatives for all three shows has yet to be announced.