Anna Friel, familiar to Broadway audiences from Closer, made her West End debut as Frank Wedekind's Lulu. The actress and play followed that success with a journey to the U.S., playing a month-long engagement at The Kennedy Center. Now that run, which began June 16, will conclude on July 17.

The run marks the Almeida Theatre's first trip to the nation's capital.

Lulu, based on Wedekind's two Lulu Plays in a new version by Nicholas Wright, traces the decline and fall of a young woman possessing a fatal combination of overpowering sexuality and innocence. As she passes through Berlin and Parisian high society to the back-streets of Jack the Ripper's London, she roundly destroys and is ultimately destroyed by her lovers.

Friel, who stars in the title role, famously made her stage debut in 1999 on Broadway, playing the seductive and mysterious waif Alice in Patrick Marber's Closer, for which she won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress. Her television work includes "Brookside," "GBH," "The Tribe" and "Our Mutual Friend."

Lulu is directed by the Almeida's joint artistic director, Jonathan Kent, and designed by Rob Howell, with lighting by Mark Henderson, music by Jonathan Dove and sound by John A Leonard. —By Robert Simonson