Having canceled this season's scheduled run of Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms, the Roundabout Theatre Company is considering a run of Harold Pinter's Betrayal, Playbill On-Line has learned. If the project develops, it would be helmed by David Leveaux, the director originally attached to Desire.
Though Roundabout is considering Betrayal, there have been no casting decisions made and no formal announcement released on the project.
Betrayal, Harold Pinter's classic of reversed chronology is a razor sharp drama involving marital infidelity and Pinter's keen observations about the dynamics of human relationships. It tells the story of a couple's relationship from the present all the way back to their first encounter.
Director David Leveaux, who recently worked on the Broadway production of The Real Thing, was scheduled to helm the Roundabout production of Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms at the American Airlines Theatre. It would have been the third time Leveaux has directed an O'Neill play on Broadway. The venture fell apart, however, after Mary-Louise Parker left the show, opting to remain with the Broadway-bound Proof. The Roundabout production of Desire was scheduled to run at the American Airlines Theatre directly after the The Man Who Came to Dinner, which currently stars Nathan Lane and Jean Smart. Dinner began previews on June 30.
Leveaux's Broadway productions include two other O'Neill plays -- Anna Christie with Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson (Tony Award for Best Revival) and A Moon for the Misbegotten (Tony nomination for Outstanding Direction). Desire would have been his third shot at directing O'Neill on Broadway. For the Royal Shakespeare Company, Leveaux directed 'Tis Pity She's a Whore and Romeo and Juliet. For the Royal National Theatre, Leveaux directed Strindberg's The Father. Since 1993, he has been artistic director of Theatre Project Tokyo, Japan, where other productions included Yukio Mishima's Modern Noh Plays, The Changeling, Hedda Gabler and Mishima's version of Jean Cocteau's Two Headed Eagle.
