After two huge James Bond blockbusters, Sam Mendes is returning to his subsidised theatre roots to direct a much anticipated new play by Jez Butterworth at London’s Royal Court theatre.
The theatre announced on Monday that Mendes would make his Royal Court debut directing The Ferryman, a play set in rural Derry in 1981 during the height of the Troubles.
Vicky Featherstone, the theatre’s artistic director, said she was “beyond thrilled” that the play would open at the Royal Court, describing it as “a mighty family epic with generations of one family crammed into its dynamic world”.
It continues a successful association between Butterworth and the theatre which has included Jerusalem, which won its lead actor, Mark Rylance, an Olivier and a Tony and was one of the hottest tickets in both the West End and Broadway.
After that came The River in 2012, which starred Dominic West at the Royal Court and Hugh Jackman in its New York transfer.
The decision by Mendes to direct is as eye-catching as the news of a new Butterworth play.
Mendes began his theatre career at the Chichester Festival theatre before founding the Donmar Warehouse in London where he spent a decade in charge.
A stellar movie career followed culminating in the spectacular success of Skyfall and then Spectre. He announced this year that he would not direct a third Bond movie.
Mendes enlisted Butterworth to help improve both the Bond scripts, a job uncredited in Skyfall.
The new Butterworth play is a co-production with West End and Broadway theatre producer Sonia Friedman and a West End transfer seems almost inevitable.
The Ferryman will run at the Royal Court in April and May. Few details have been revealed but it is set in rural Derry, 1981, and follows the Carney farming family as they prepare for the harvest.
“A day of hard work on the land and a traditional night of feasting and celebrations lie ahead. But this year they will be interrupted by a visitor.”
It is set in the same year as the republican hunger strikes which led to the deaths of 10 prisoners including the IRA leader in the Maze prison, Bobby Sands.
Other new plays announced in the Royal Court’s 2017 season include Simon McBurney directing The Kid Stays in the Picture, based on the life of film producer Robert Evans, who went from being one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, producing films such as The Godfather and Chinatown, to disgrace when, in 1980, he pleaded guilty to cocaine trafficking.
The Bond theme continues as series producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson are among the co-producers for the Evans play.
In the Court’s smaller space, the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, there will be new plays by Simon Stephens, Gary Owen and the lower case-preferring debbie tucker green, with a play called a profoundly affectionate, passionate devotion to someone (-noun).
Other plays in the main space will include a revival of Jim Cartwright’s seminal Road, to be directed by John Tiffany following his success directing the Harry Potter plays; a work called B by the Chilean playwright Guillermo Calderón; and Anatomy of a Suicide by Alice Birch and directed by Katie Mitchell.
Featherstone said: “I am humbled and thrilled to be announcing such a varied and exciting mixture of work from playwrights and theatre-makers at the top of their game, pushing the limits of their potential to challenge, surprise and provoke us.
“This is the Royal Court at its best – a place for attracting some of the great playwrights and theatre-makers of our times to experiment and take risks to give us, the audience, the most extraordinary experiences possible.”
