Donmar Warehouse - Spring 2016 includes Welcome Home, Captain Fox!
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
JOSIE Rourke, Artistic Director of the Donmar Warehouse, has announced a new Spring Season of three plays – Welcome Home, Captain Fox!, the world premiere of Nick Payne’s new play Elegy, and a revival of Brian Friel’s Faith Healer.
Talking about the new season, Josie Rourke said:
“The Donmar Spring Season features two world premieres by leading writers, and the third play in my tenure as Artistic Director by dramatist Brian Friel, Faith Healer, directed by Lyndsey Turner. Alongside Lyndsey, I’m thrilled to welcome another of the UK’s leading directors – Blanche McIntyre, who is making her Donmar debut.
“We start the season with her production of Welcome Home, Captain Fox! a new version, by Anthony Weigh, of Jean Anouilh’s superb comic play about identity – Le Voyageur Sans Bagage. Weigh has relocated Anouilh’s story, of an amnesiac soldier reluctantly forced on a quest to reunite with his family after eighteen years, from late 1930’s France to the Hamptons in the late 1950’s.
“Welcome Home, Captain Fox! boasts a fantastic cast that includes Francesca Annis, Michelle Asante, Barnaby Kay, Rory Keenan, Katherine Kingsley, Trevor Laird and Fenella Woolgar.
“The second show in our season is a world premiere, that reunites me as a director with our Writer-in-Residence, the brilliant Nick Payne. His play Elegy, is a beautiful and moving story about three women, set in the near future. It’s about our developing scientific understanding of consciousness, and what happens when we find ourselves having to make the choice between love and survival.
“Our final play in the season is one of the greatest works of the incomparable Brian Friel, who passed away earlier this year. Lyndsey Turner directs the sublime Stephen Dillane and Gina McKee in Friel’s masterpiece, Faith Healer. After her definitive productions of Philadelphia, Here I Come! and Fathers and Sons, I am thrilled to welcome Lyndsey back to the Donmar, and to Friel’s work.
“This season our £10 Front Row ticket access scheme continues unchanged thanks to the generosity of a group of anonymous donors. Over the past three years, more than 40,000 people have come to the Donmar via Barclays Front Row, over 50% of whom had never seen a show at the Donmar before. It’s crucial to us that there is constant and affordable access to our seats. We’re very grateful to the individuals who are allowing these low-price, front-row tickets to continue next season.
“Beyond our stage, we’re reaching new audiences with National Theatre Live; in January 2016 we will screen Les Liaisons Dangereuses into cinemas around the UK and internationally.”
As already stated the Donmar’s Spring 2016 season opens with Welcome Home, Captain Fox!, Anthony Weigh’s new version of Jean Anouilh’s hit 1937 comedy Le Voyageur Sans Bagage. Directed by Blanche McIntyre and featuring Francesca Annis, Michelle Asante, Barnaby Kay, Rory Keenan, Katherine Kingsley, Trevor Laird and Fenella Woolgar, it runs from March 1 (previews from February 18) to April 16.
It’s the legendary hot summer of 1959 and while the Cold War rages and America tunes into I Love Lucy!, Captain Jack Fox, believed missing in action in the fields of France 15 years before, is about to be reunited with his family in The Hamptons.
But is this really Jack Fox? And if it isn’t, who is this man? And why are there 22 other families so intent on claiming him as their own?
Based on Jean Anouilh’s hit 1937 play, Le Voyageur Sans Bagage, Welcome Home, Captain Fox! is described as a sparkling comedy of identity, lost and found. Playwright Anthony Weigh updates Anouilh’s riotous family drama to a long, hot summer, on the very tip of Long Island, in the America of the late 1950’s.
Jean Anouilh (1910 – 1987) was a French dramatist whose career spanned five decades. L’Hermine, performed in 1932, was Anouilh’s first play to be produced, and success came in 1937 with Le Voyageur Sans Bagage, which was soon followed by La Sauvage (1938). However, he is perhaps best known for his play Antigone (1943). In 1970, his work was recognised with the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca.
Anthony Weigh’s previous work for the Donmar includes The Silence of the Sea as part of the Donmar Trafalgar season. Weigh graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art, Sydney and has worked extensively as an actor both in Australia and internationally. In 2003, he undertook a Masters in Playwriting at the University of Birmingham. His first full length play, 2,000 Feet Away had its world premiere at Belvoir Street Theatre, Sydney in November of 2007 and made its UK premiere in June 2008 at the Bush Theatre, directed by Josie Rourke. Other work at the Bush Theatre includes Like a Fishbone (2010) and Flooded Grave (2011).
Blanche McIntyre, who will be making her Donmar debut with Welcome Home, Captain Fox!, is an Associate Director at Nuffield Theatre, Southampton, and has previously been Director in Residence at the National Theatre Studio and the Finborough Theatre. She was awarded Best Director at the TMA 2013 UK Theatre Awards for The Seagull, as well as the Critics’ Circle Most Promising Newcomer Award for Accolade and Foxfinder (both at the Finborough). Accolade also won Best Director and Best Production at Off West End Theatre Awards 2011 and transferred to the St James Theatre.
Francesca Annis (Mrs Fox) returns to the Donmar after her performances in Versailles written and directed by Peter Gill, Henry IV and The Vortex both directed by Michael Grandage, as well as Josie Rourke’s production of The Machine (Manchester International Festival and Park Avenue Armory, New York).
Her other stage credits include Time and the Conways and A Month in the Country (National Theatre), Under the Blue Sky (Duke of York’s Theatre), The Glass Menagerie (Gate Theatre, Dublin), Blood (Royal Court Theatre), Hedda Gabler (Chichester Festival Theatre), Hamlet (Almeida Theatre and New York) and Troilus and Cressida, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, The Comedy of Errors and Measure for Measure (RSC).
Her screen work includes Home Fires, Cranford, Jane Eyre, Jericho, Copenhagen, Wives and Daughters and Reckless (TV); Revolver, The Libertine, Milk, Dune and Macbeth (film).
Michelle Asante (Juliette) makes her Donmar debut in Welcome Home, Captain Fox! Her theatre credits include Eclipsed (Gate Theatre), Wendy and Peter Pan (RSC), Feast (Young Vic/Royal Court), Ruined (Almeida Theatre), and The Bacchae (NTS/Edinburgh Festival/Lyric Hammersmith). On television, she has appeared in Father Brown, Lucky Man, Doctor Who, Monroe and Law and Order: UK.
Barnaby Kay (George Fox) returns to the Donmar after playing Mitch in Rob Ashford’s production of A Streetcar Named Desire. His recent theatre includes Rupert Goold’s critically-acclaimed production of King Charles III (Wyndham’s Theatre) and Raving (Hampstead Theatre) directed by Edward Hall. His other theatre credits include The Real Thing (Old Vic), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York), Mouth to Mouth and Trust (Royal Court).
Kay’s extensive TV and film credits include Wallander, New Tricks, Holby City, Treasure Island and Shakespeare in Love.
Rory Keenan (Gene) returns to the Donmar after appearing in Lyndsey Turner’s production of Brian Friel’s Philadephia, Here I Come! in 2012 and Dublin Carol as part of the Donmar Trafalgar season. Most recently, he starred alongside David Haig and Adam Rayner in Chichester Festival Theatre’s production of Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me. His other recent theatre credits include Liola, The Kitchen and Damned by Despair (National Theatre), Lakeboat/Prairie Du Chien (Arcola Theatre) and The Big Fella (Lyric Hammersmith). He has also worked extensively in Ireland.
He has also appeared on screen in Human Remains, Grimsby and Ella Enchanted (film); Lucky Man, War and Peace, Peaky Blinders and Birdsong (TV).
Katherine Kingsley (Mrs Marcee Dupont-Dufort) returns to the Donmar after appearing in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and Piaf (also West End) for which she received an Olivier nomination. She was also nominated for the 2014 Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Play for her performance as Helena in Michael Grandage’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Noël Coward Theatre. Recent performances include The Rehearsal (Minerva, Chichester) and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Savoy Theatre).
Her screen credits include The Secret, Uncle, Bad Education, The Bill and Hollyoaks (TV); Michael Grandage’s Genius opposite Jude Law, Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman (film).
Trevor Laird (James), who will be making his Donmar debut in Welcome Home, Captain Fox!, most recently appeared in Kingston 14 at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East. He also performed alongside James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave in Much Ado About Nothing at the Old Vic, while his credits at the National Theatre include One Man, Two Guvnors, England People Very Nice, A Statement Of Regret, Mysteries, Macbeth and Shift.
His extensive screen work includes Death in Paradise, Toast of London, Holby City, Waking the Dead, Doctor Who, Peep Show, Murder Room, The Last Detective and Doctors (TV); Quadrophenia, Babylon and Secrets and Lies (film).
Fenella Woolgar (Valerie) who will also be making her Donmar debut in Welcome Home, Captain Fox!, most recently starred as Margaret Thatcher in Moira Buffini’s Handbagged (Tricycle and Vaudeville, West End). Her other credits include Annie Baker’s play Circle Mirror Transformation, performed at the Rose Lipman Building in Haggerston as part of the Royal Court’s Theatre Local project. She also appeared opposite Sheridan Smith in the Old Vic’s 2012 production of Hedda Gabler, for which she won a 2013 Clarence Derwent Award.
For Radio 4, Woolgar has recently recorded Go Set a Watchman and The Stuarts; while her screen credits include Mr Turner, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, St Trinian’s and Vera Drake (film); Home Fires, Spies of Warsaw, Agatha Christie: Poirot and Doctor Who (TV).