The Caretaker transfers to West End
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
NEXT year, the Liverpool Everyman production of Harold Pinter’s modern classic The Caretaker, with Jonathan Pryce as Davies, will transfer to the West End’s Trafalgar Studios for a 14-week season – from January 18 (previews from January 12) to April 17, 2010.
The tramp Davies is offered shelter in a dilapidated London flat by two strangers who later turn out to be brothers, only to find himself embroiled in power games that are as terrifying as they are comic.
Written in 1960, The Caretaker was Pinter’s first big hit.
Pryce, a former artistic director of the Liverpool Everyman, was last seen on the London stage in Athol Fugard’s rarely seen play Dimetos at the Donmar Warehouse. His other theatre credits include David Mamet’s 1984 Pulitzer prize-winning Glengarry Glen Ross (Apollo Theatre), Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, Hamlet, Miss Saigon (as the Engineer), Oliver! (as Fagin), My Fair Lady (as Professor Higgins) and the Broadway production of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
In 1980, he appeared as Mick in the National Theatre’s production of The Caretaker.
His numerous screen credits include the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, The Brothers Grimm, Tomorrow Never Dies, Evita and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (film); and Victoria and Albert and Selling Hitler (TV).
Also reprising his role in the West End will be Peter McDonald (as Aston), whose previous theatre credits include Glengarry Glen Ross (alongside Pryce), Dancing At Lughnasa and Resurrection Blues (Old Vic), and Exiles and Aristocrats (National Theatre).
Directed by Christopher Morahan, the Liverpool Everyman production is the first revival of The Caretaker since Pinter’s death on Christmas Eve last year. It was last seen in London at the Tricycle theatre in 2007 and starred David Bradley, Con O’Neill and Nigel Harman.
Othello, with Lenny Henry in the title role, is currently playing in Trafalgar Studio 1.
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