Anarchists, Cokeheads, Gigolos, Sexual Perversion. Things look pretty sordid for the Donmar Warehouse's 2002-03 season, the first under the direction of new artistic director Michael Grandage.
Productions will include new revivals of Noël Coward's The Vortex, Dario Fo's Accidental Death of an Anarchist and Albert Camus' Caligula, as well as the previously announced co-production with The Chicago Shakespeare Theater of Stephen Sondheim's musical look at the opening of Japan to the West, Pacific Overtures.
The season will commence Dec. 5-Feb. 15, 2003, with Coward's breakout work, The Vortex, about a savage wake-up call visited upon a coke-sniffing Jazz Age kid and his deluded, youth-and-man-chasing mother. Noël Coward starred as the son in the original London production, which made his reputation. Michael Grandage directs the piece.
Italian clown and professional agitator Dario Fo wrote the next attraction, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, a rowdy, freewheeling mystery farce in which the suspicious death of an anarchist, who falls through an open police station window, is covered up—until a fast talking master of disguise known as the Fool arrives on the scene to find out who committed the crime. The play, probably the Nobel Prize winner's best known, runs Feb. 10-April 19, 2002. Robert Delamere directs. Simon Nye provides the new translation.
Albert Camus' tale of the infamously decadent ruler, Caligula, plays April 24-June 14, 2003. Grandage directs David Greig's translation. Pacific Overtures will run June 20–Aug. 23, 2003. Gary Griffin will repeat his direction. Several Chicago performers will repeat their performances — including Joseph Anthony Foronda as the Reciter and Kevin Gudahl as Kayama — at the Donmar Warehouse. Musical director Tom Murray, set designer Dan Ostling and costume designer Mara Blumenfeld will duplicate their Midwest work overseas.
The musical began performances at CST's Navy Pier home on Oct. 10, 2001, and was to close on Dec. 2 before an extension was announced.
The cast also included Blake Hammond as Shogun's Mother, Christopher Mark Peterson as Manjiro, Niel Friedman as Madam, Richard Manera as Lion Dancer, Nathaniel Stamplet as Warrior, Anthony Hite as Tamate and Jeff Dumas as Dutch Admiral.
For tickets call 020-7369-1732.
—By Robert Simonson
