The Stage

Roger to play title role in Donmar’s Piaf

Published Friday 18 April 2008 at 10:50 by Mark Shenton

Elena Roger is to return to the West End stage, playing French chanteuse Edith Piaf, as part of the Donmar Warehouse’s forthcoming season.

Pam Gems’ Piaf will return to the Donmar Warehouse, 30 years after it was premiered there under the auspices of the Royal Shakespeare Company, to launch the next season of plays at the venue from August.

The line up will also include productions of August Strindberg’s Creditors, a revival of TS Eliot’s The Family Reunion as the centrepiece of an Eliot season, and a stage version of Andrew O’Hagan’s Scottish novel Be Near Me written by and starring Ian McDiarmid to be co-produced with the National Theatre of Scotland. These will play at the Donmar simultaneously with the company’s year-long residency at Wyndham’s Theatre from September.

Speaking exclusively to The Stage, Donmar artistic director Michael Grandage, revealed that Piaf will mark the return to the London stage of Roger, the Argentine actress who Grandage first introduced to London when she played the title role in his production of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Evita at the Adelphi Theatre in 2006.

He said: “I wanted to collaborate with her again and was looking to find a vehicle for her. Also, there’s been a big resurgence in interest in Piaf with the recent movie, and I knew that Pam Gems was up for doing some re-working of it in the light of all the information about Piaf that has come to light since she first wrote it in 1978. It is also something that I feel will very suited to the space, since of course we know that it has already worked there in the past.”

The production, which will run from August 7 to September 20 (with press night on August 13), will be directed by Jamie Lloyd, who has been newly appointed as an associate director of the theatre alongside Douglas Hodge, and previously worked as Grandage’s associate on both Guys and Dolls and Evita.

It will be followed by a new version of Strindberg’s Creditors, written by David Greig and directed by Alan Rickman. It will run from September 25 to November 15, with a press night on September 30.

Then the Donmar will stage a TS Eliot Festival from November 20 to January 17, with a new production of The Family Reunion (opening to the press on November 25), directed by Jeremy Herrin, as the centrepiece.

“I saw the last revival of The Family Reunion with Edward Fox that came from the Royal Exchange Theatre, and it has haunted me ever since,” explained Grandage. “I also saw The Cocktail Party at the Phoenix, directed by John Dexter with Alec McGowan, and it left a big impression on me, too - it’s weird and erotic and bizarre, like nothing you ever see in the theatre”.

The festival of his plays will, added Grandage, “allow audiences the opportunity to engage with this great literary figure - he was a great writer for the theatre as well as of verse that needs to be explored.”

Among other events being planned are readings of Four Quartets, The Murder in the Cathedral (to be directed by Douglas Hodge), The Cocktail Party (to be staged by Jamie Lloyd) and of Eliot’s verse (to be directed by Josephine Hart).

In the New Year, the Donmar will join forces with the National Theatre of Scotland to put Andrew O’Hagan’s Be Near Me on stage. This will receive its world premiere in Scotland for one night in January and then transfer to the Donmar, running from January 22 to March 14 (with a press night on January 27), before a seven-week tour of Scotland and England.

McDiarmid, who previously appeared at the Donmar in the title role of Grandage’s production of Pirandello’s Henry IV in 2004, has written the adaptation and will star as a Catholic priest who is assigned to a small Scottish town, where he meets hostility and prejudice from his parishioners.

“It’s a very Scottish story with a very Scottish heart”, said Grandage, hence the association with the National Theatre of Scotland, whose associate director John Tiffany (Black Watch) will direct.