DAVID SUCHET TO RETURN TO THE WEST END STAGE?
Posted on
| By
London Theatre Direct
David Suchet rumoured to appear in Eugene O'Neill's LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT in the West End.
David Suchet is one of the UK's leading actors; He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2011 New Year Honours for services to drama and his many roles for the Royal Shakespeare company include Shylock, Iago and Caliban. His numerous stage credits include Amadeus, Oleanna and Separation. He is widely known to television audiences from such series as Blott on the Landscape, The Way We Live Now, National Crime Squad and Agatha Christie's Poirot. Most recently he has starred in the West End in Arthur Miller's All My Sons for which he won a Whats On Stage award and is nominated for in this Sunday's Olivier awards.
Now the veteran actor is rumored to be in talks to star in Eugene O'Neill 1956 4 act drama, LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT under the direction of Anthony Page. It has been reported that the production would open in March 2012, with Kim Poster and Nica Burns producing.
LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT is considered Eugene O'Neill's masterpiece play and is a largely autobiographical work of gut-wrenching honesty. His experience in 1912–13 at a sanatorium where he was recovering from TB made him decide to devote himself full time to writing plays (the events immediately prior to going to the sanatorium are dramatized in the play.) O'Neill had previously been employed by the New London Telegraph, writing poetry as well as reporting. O'Neill posthumously received the 1957 Pulitzer prize for Drama for the work.
Over the course of one fateful day, the Tyrone family (three alcoholics and one morphine addict) sling barbs and reopen old wounds in their seaside Connecticut vacation home. With heartbreaking humor, the loving yet dysfunctional family battle to unearth and conceal a series of appalling truths to explosive effect. The emotional complexity of this troubled family - gripped with addiction, haunted by the past and paralyzed by the future - delivers staggering insight on the themes of familial resentment, enabling, forgiveness and the bond of abiding love.
Suchet would play James, the 65 year old head of the Tyrone family.
[posted by Louise, 11/03/2011]