Michael Grandage begins his first season as artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse when his production of Noel Coward's early — and sensational — play The Vortex begins previews Dec. 5, opening Dec. 10.
Partly based on Hamlet's torrid relationship with his mother, Gertrude, The Vortex was — and is — very modern, with its central issues of sex, drugs and the collapse of an earlier morality.
The play is centered on the uneasy interaction between Florence Lancaster (Francesca Annis, who was also a notable Gertrude in Hamlet a few years ago, and in which production she became the off stage partner of her on-stage son, Ralph Fiennes) and her son Nicky, to be played by Chiwetel Ejiofor.
— By Theatrenow
