Donmar Warehouse - Rourke's first season
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
JOSIE Rourke, who succeeds Michael Grandage as Artistic Director of the Donmar Warehouse on January 1, 2012, has announced her inaugural season at the Covent Garden venue.
The season opens with George Farquhar’s classic comedy The Recruiting Officer. Directed by Rourke, it runs from February 9 to April 14, 2012.
It’s with the promise of money, glory and adventure that Captain Plume is recruiting the men of Shrewsbury for the King’s army. He’s also determined to make a conquest of Sylvia, but as she’s now an heiress she can afford to put him to the test. Meanwhile, the scheming Melinda is toying with the affections of Captain Brazen and the gentleman Mr Worthy.
From military manoeuvring to sexual strategies, The Recruiting Officer, written in 1706, is an unashamed celebration of love, lustiness and victory not only in battle but also the bedroom.
The Recruiting Officer is followed – from April 19 to May 26, 2012 – by a revival of Robert Holman’s Making Noise Quietly, directed by Peter Gill.
A conscientious objector and a roaming artist find tenderness as the carnage of World War II unfolds across the Channel and doodlebugs explode in the meadow.
A bereaved mother struggles with bitterness and love in recollecting her estranged son, lost in the Falklands.
Deep in the Black Forest, an ageing holocaust survivor seeks to bring peace to a disturbed young boy and his equally wild step-father.
Described as a delicately poetic triptych of plays, Holman’s seminal work paints a very human picture of the subtly devastating effects of war and examines the bonds of suffering shared by us all.
Finally, Rourke will direct Jack Thorne’s new version of Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s satirical drama The Physicists, which runs from May 31 to July 21, 2012.
Another nurse murdered in the world’s most illustrious sanatorium. And who’s to blame this time: Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein or the brilliant Johann Wilhelm Möbius?
But what are these great minds doing here, together at the same time? Who are these men? And what have they got to hide?
Written in the shadow of the atom bomb and at a time of unprecedented scientific advance, The Physicists considers if insanity is the only refuge for the dangerously intelligent.
The cast includes Paul Bhattacharjee (as Einstein), Joanna Brookes (Nurse Boll), Oliver Coopersmith (Wilfried Kaspar Möbius/Blocher), Ben Hardy (Adolf-Friedrich Möbius/Coroner), John Heffernan (Johann Wilhelm Möbius), Adam McNamara (Uwe Sievers), Miranda Raison (Nurse Monika/Lina Rose), John Ramm (Detective Inspector Richard Voss), Justin Salinger (Newton), Sophie Thompson (Dr Mathilde von Zahnd) and Obioma Ugoala (Fantam Murillo).
Rourke has also announced the appointment of Anthony Weigh as associate artist, and Michael Bruce as composer in residence (a first for the Donmar). They will be joined by Kate Pakenham as executive producer; Jo Danvers as general manager; and Anne McNulty as casting and creative associate.
Read more about Josie Rourke
Inadmissible Evidence continues at the Donmar Warehouse until November 26, 2011. It will be followed – from December 1, 2011 to February 4, 2012 – by Richard II, Michael Grandage’s final production as Artistic Director.