The Liverpool Everyman production of Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker, starring Jonathan Pryce as Davies, is to transfer to London’s Trafalgar Studios on 12 January (press night 18 January).
The Caretaker, which celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2010, is one of Pinter’s most performed plays and was his first major success. A dark, tense, yet comic play, it tells of the power struggle between two brothers which results when one of them invites a tramp, Davies, into the home they share.
During his early career, Laurence Olivier Award-winning actor Pryce performed frequently at the Liverpool Everyman, eventually becoming the venue’s Artistic Director in the 1970s, though he had not returned to the Everyman until now. In the intervening years Pryce established a hugely successful career across stage and screen, proving his versatility with credits in musicals Miss Saigon, My Fair Lady and Oliver! as well as plays including Glengarry Glen Ross, Comedians, Hamlet and, most recently, Dimetos at the Donmar Warehouse earlier this year. In 1980 he appeared in the National Theatre production of The Caretaker in the role of Mick. Pryce’s screen work includes Evita, Carrington, Tomorrow Never Dies and the Pirates Of The Caribbean trilogy.
The cast of The Caretaker also features Peter McDonald as Aston. McDonald starred alongside Pryce in the 2007 revival of Glengarry Glen Ross at the Apollo theatre and was seen earlier this year in Dancing At Lughnasa at the Old Vic. His West End credits also include Exiles and Aristocrats at the National Theatre and Resurrection Blues at the Old Vic.
The Christopher Morahan-directed production is the first revival of The Caretaker since the death of the Nobel Prize-winning playwright on Christmas Eve last year. The play was last seen in London at the Tricycle theatre, where David Bradley, Con O’Neill and Nigel Harman starred in Jamie Lloyd’s production.
Trafalgar Studios currently hosts Northern Broadsides’s production of Othello, starring Lenny Henry, which plays until 12 December.
CB