Rupert Goold to Direct World Premiere of David Mamet's The Anarchist in London

By Mark Shenton
01 Apr 2011

Rupert Goold
Rupert Goold
Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN

Rupert Goold will direct the world premiere of David Mamet's The Anarchist in London in the fall. It is the third time a Mamet play has received its world premiere in London, following Glengarry Glen Ross (first seen at the National's Cottesloe Theatre in 1983) and The Cryptogram (first seen at the Ambassadors Theatre in 1994).

No further details, in terms of casting, theatre or dates are available yet, but producer Matthew Byam Shaw has called the work "a fascinating sword-fight of a play," and according to a report in London's Daily Mail, it is about two women -- the governor of a prison and a lifer trying to convince her that, after years behind bars, she's ready for parole. The prisoner has been involved in a violent political organization, "loosely based on a Baader-Meinhof or Weather Underground-type anarchist group," according to Byam Shaw, though it is not based on any particular individual.

Mamet was most recently represented on Broadway by a revival of his play A Life in the Theatre, and before that the premiere of Race. Other plays include American Buffalo, Speed-the-Plow, November, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, Edmond, Romance and The Old Neighborhood. He is co-founder of New York's Atlantic Theater Company, of which he remains a member.

Goold is artistic director of Headlong, and an associate director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Recent credits include Earthquakes in London (National Theatre), Enron (Chichester, Royal Court, West End and briefly Broadway), Macbeth (Chichester, West End and Broadway, starring Patrick Stewart in the title role, which was subsequently filmed and recently broadcast on PBS) and Turandot (English National Opera).