The Donmar Warehouse has announced a trio of plays exploring generational legacy to run at the acclaimed venue next spring, with new work by Peter Gill and James Graham to be presented alongside a Brian Friel classic.
Gill will direct the world premiere of his latest work Versailles at the venue followed by Artistic Director Josie Rourke’s production of Graham’s Privacy. Lyndsey Turner, whose most recent production Chimerica found huge success at the Almeida theatre before transferring into the West End, will conclude the season with Friel’s Fathers And Sons.
Returning to the venue following 2012’s Making Noise Quietly, Gill’s latest work looking at the legacy of peace will be staged from 20 February to 5 April to coincide with the beginning of the 100th anniversary year of the outbreak of World War One and take a startling look at the connection between this historic moment and the world we live in today.
Set amongst a middle-class family in Kent whose son is in Paris at the negotiations of the famous treaty, Versailles will see Gill direct Donmar Warehouse returnees Barbara Flynn (The Bullet) and award-winning actor Gwilym Lee (Hamlet, King Lear), alongside newcomers to the venue Upstairs Downstairs star Helen Bradbury, Tom Hughes (Sweet Nothings, Young Vic), Tamla Kari (The Inbetweeners Movie), Josh O’Connor (Country Music, Trafalgar Studios), West End regular Simon Williams (Yes, Prime Minister, The 39 Steps) and Eleanor Yates (London Wall, St James theatre).
Following his Olivier Award nominated National Theatre hit This House, Graham will tackle the topical subject of digital privacy from 10 April to 31 May. Provoked by the recent revelations of Edward Snowden, Graham has spent the past 12 months interviewing journalists, politicians and analysts, and researching the impact of social media and big data on our on and offline lives. The result is a new work questioning whether such a thing as privacy even exists anymore, bringing the same forensic insight he brought to parliament in his last work to this new dramatic investigation of the digital age.
Concluding the season, Friel’s Fathers And Sons is based on Ivor Turgenev’s 1862 masterpiece that reveals a new world in conflict with the old, the uneasiness of clashing generations and the difficulty of staying radical when life gets in the way.
Set over the course of one summer, the drama tells the story of two young men who arrive at a country estate, fresh from university. With one the son of the landowner and the other a charismatic and daring radical, their warm welcome soon cools when their host finds fault with their radical values, bringing to the surface the tensions of one generation and the next.
The trio of plays adds to a hugely exciting time for the Donmar Warehouse, with its hit Olivier Award nominated production of Julius Caesar currently playing in New York and its production of The Night Alive soon to follow its Atlantic-crossing footsteps.
Boasting similar success in London, The Weir will begin a West End run in January following its critically acclaimed reception at the venue earlier this year, while star of stage and screen Tom Hiddleston will star in Coriolanus at its Covent Garden home this December following the Jessica Raine-led current hit Roots.