Olivier Award nominee Gina McKee will reprise her critically acclaimed role in Florian Zeller’s The Mother at the Tricycle Theatre next January.
The Theatre Royal Bath transfer follows the huge success of Zeller’s The Father, which similarly made its UK premiere at the Bath venue before finding a home at the Tricycle Theatre, earning such critical praise it transferred once again into the West End for its current Wyndham’s Theatre run.
Like its companion piece, The Mother is a surreal, disorientating tale in which reality and fantasy blur as McKee’s character Anne broods upon her life, her grown up children and the actions of her husband.
Directed by Laurence Boswell, the hit drama will play from 21 January to 5 March and see Richard Clothier (King Lear, National Theatre; Enlightenment, Hampstead Theatre) and William Postlewaite (Longing, Hampstead Theatre) reprise their roles alongside stage and screen favourite McKee, who returns to the London stage following her most recent appearances in Richard III at the Trafalgar Studios, the Donmar Warehouse’s King Lear and Hampstead Theatre hit Di And Viv And Rose.
The Mother is announced as part of a packed spring/summer for the Tricycle Theatre, described by the venue’s Artistic Director Indhu Rubasingham as a “season of untold stories”.
Following The Mother, Mikel Murfi will bring his one-man show The Man In The Woman’s Shoes to the theatre from 4 to 23 April following its huge success in the USA and Ireland.
Described as “funny, tender and at times downright daft”, Murfi’s self-penned and directed piece is set in Ireland in October 1978, and follows the life and inner thoughts of cobbler Pat Farnon as he walks to town and back.
The actor and director, who last appeared on the London stage alongside Cillian Murphy in the National Theatre’s Ballyturk, was described by the New York Times as “astonishing” when the show played Off Broadway, with the newspaper declaring it “a high-top performance”.
From Ireland, the Tricycle Theatre will then travel to Pakistan for the UK premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and playwright Ayad Akhtar’s intense political thriller The Invisible Hand, which will play under the direction of Rubasingham from 12 May to 2 July.
Taking an explorative look at the power of global finance, the Pakistani American actor and writer’s drama tells the story of US banker Nick Bright, who is confined to a cell within the depths of rural Pakistan. Knowing his freedom comes at a price, every second counts as his life lies in the hands of not only his captors but the whims of the market.
Speaking about his work, Akhtar commented: “The Invisible Hand is a play I wrote hoping it would feel equally at home in Karachi, New York, or London and I feel terrifically lucky that it found its way to Indhu, and to a premiere at the Tricycle in 2016.
“I am very excited to be working with a director I have long admired from afar, and feel honoured to be part — in whatever humble way — of the Tricycle’s long tradition of politically engaged, culturally rich work.”
The season will also include the return of comedian and activist Mark Thomas to the venue, with his new show Trespass playing from 25 April to 7 May, and the return of the Tricycle Takeover (13 to 23 March), when the theatre’s Young Company takes the reins for an exciting programme of theatre, film, music and poetry.