The Stage

Irons to return to Broadway in new play Impressionism

Published Monday 24 November 2008 at 17:00 by Judd Hollander

Actor Jeremy Irons will be returning to Broadway for the first time in 25 years in the new American play Impressionism.

Written by Michael Jacobs, the show opens on March 12 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre.

The last time Irons was on Broadway was in his Tony Award-winning turn in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing in 1984, which marked Irons Broadway debut.

According to the press notes, Impressionism “is the story of a world travelling photojournalist and a New York gallery owner who discover each other and also that there might be an art to repairing broken lives.”

Co-starring with Irons will be Joan Allen, who won a Tony Award for her 1988 Broadway debut in Lanford Wilson’s Burn This. The next year she received a Tony nomination for role in Wendy Wasserstein’s The Heidi Chronicles. This is Allen’s first time on Broadway since then.

In addition to his New York stage work, Irons has appeared with the Royal Shakespeare Company and at the Bristol Old Vic and the Duke of York Theatre. He recently featured in Howard Brenton’s Never So Good at the National in the role of former prime minister Harold Macmillan. In films, he won the New York Critics Best Actor Award in 1988 for Dead Ringers and the Oscar and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for Reversal of Fortune in 1990. He was also the voice of Scar in the Disney animated film The Lion King.

Allen has received Academy Award nominations for her work in the films The Contender, The Crucible and Nixon. Other movie roles include Compromising Positions, Tucker - The Man and his Dream, The Notebook, Pleasantville, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum and Death Race.

Impressions will be directed by Jack O’Brien and produced by Ostar Productions. Additional casting and design personnel will be announced in the coming weeks.