With Stephen Rea (The Crying Game, Interview with the Vampire) in the title role, the U.S. Premiere of Sam Shepard's A Particle of Dread (Oedipus Variations) begins previews tonight, November 11, at the Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre at Off-Broadway's Pershing Square Signature Center. The official opening is November 23.
The cast features actors from both sides of the Atlantic, including Academy Award nominee Rea as Oedipus/Otto and Tony Award winner Brid Brennan (Dancing at Lughnasa) as Jocasta/Jocelyn.
The play is a co-production of Signature Theatre and the Field Day Theatre Company of Derry, founded in 1980 by Stephen Rea and playwright Brian Friel. Nancy Meckler directs.
Sam Shepard, winner of a Pulitzer Prize, an Outer Critics Circle Award for A Lie of the Mind and 10 Obie Awards, was Field Day's playwright in residence in 1996-97. His A Particle of Dread, written specifically for Derry/Londonderry's City of Culture 2013 celebration, where it premiered, is described a "dark, fragmented, modern-day take on Oedipus Rex."
In her review, Jane Coyle of Culture Northern Ireland referred to Shepard's deep connection to the Oedipus plays of Sophocles, and called the contemporary playwright's take an "intense thriller, a terrifying whodunnit, which speaks eloquently of the dubious morals and mythology of our own time."
That's what Shepard had in mind. As he writes on his own website about the staging of the play in Derry, "The material we are using is pertinent to the situation here. It's not as though we are doing something just for culture. We are doing it for a reason. The notion of 'place' is very strong here. There is where something happened. We explore destiny, fate, murder, exploitation, origins. The fact there is a wall round the city is part and parcel of what is going on in the play."
Originally scheduled to run through December 21, the engagement has been extended through January 4, 2015.
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