Kate Burton will replace "Sex and the City" star Kim Cattrall in the Public Theater's New York premiere of David Mamet's new play, Boston Marriage, the New York Times reported.
The sudden casting (Cattrall's exit was only revealed yesterday) would probably explain Burton's just as sudden withdrawal from a Sept. 26 benefit Reflections. . . Post 9/11 NYC Through Children's Eyes.
Burton won two Tony nominations last spring, for The Elephant Man and Hedda Gabler. She will star opposite Martha Plimpton.
Previews for the New York premiere will begin Nov. 5 and run through Dec. 8. Karen Kohlhaas will direct.
Martha Plimpton earned solid reviews in last season's Atlantic Theatre Company production of Hobson's Choice. Much of her stage work has been seen in Chicago at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, where she is an ensemble member. At the theatre, she acted in Playboy of the Western World and Hedda Gabler, the latter performance favorably compared to Kate Burton's recent Broadway turn. It was originally announced that American producers Anita Waxman and Elizabeth Williams would team with the Public on Boston Marriage. Spokesperson for the Public told Playbill On-Line Sept. 19 that the theatre and the producers still have a good relationship and it is hoped that the Mamet will have a future beyond its Public run.
Boston Marriage, which had its 1999 U.S. debut in Boston (appropriately), is an odd departure for man's man Mamet. The play is about the prickly and arch relationship between two Victorian era women, Clare and Anna, who live together. Mamet's wife, Rebecca Pidgeon, starred in the Boston staging.
The London cast of the play featured Zoe Wanamaker, Anna Chancellor and Lyndsey Marshal.
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Cattrall was only the latest star from television and film to suddenly drop out of a New York show. In the past month, Ben Stiller exited the Broadway revival of Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, Cynthia Nixon left a new Off-Broadway revival of Lanford Wilson's Tally's Folly and Natasha Richardson departed the Roundabout Theatre Company's Broadway production of Strindberg's Miss Julie.
—By Robert Simonson
