Rodney's Wife
- Written and directed by Richard Nelson
Richard Nelson's plays include Farewell to the Theatre, Nikolai and the Others, Sweet and Sad, That Hopey Changey Thing, Conversations in Tusculum, How Shakespeare Won the West, Frank's Home, Rodney's Wife, Franny's Way, Madame Melville, Goodnight Children Everywhere, The General From America, New England, Misha's Party (with Alexander Gelman), Columbus or the Discovery of Japan, Two Shakespearean Actors, Some Americans Abroad, Left, Life Sentences, Principia Scriptoriae. He was written the musicals Unfinished Piece for a Player Piano (with Peter Golub), James Joyce's The Dead (with Shaun Davey), My Life With Albertine (with Ricky Ian Gordon), the screenplays for the films Hyde Park-on-Hudson (Roger Michell director) and Ethan Frome (John Madden director). He has received numerous awards both in America and abroad, including a Tony Award (Best Book of a Musical for James Joyce's The Dead), and Oliver Award (Best Play for Goodnight Children Everywhere), Tony nominations (Best Play for Two Shakespearean Actors; Best Score as co-lyricist for James Joyce's The Dead), an Olivier nomination (Best Comedy for Some Americans Abroad), two Obies, a Lortel Award, a New York Drama Critics Circle Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Lila Wallace-Readers' Digest Writers Award. He is the recipient of the PEN/Laura Pels Master Playwright Award, an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and he is an Honorary Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He lives in upstate New York. (As of January 2007)
In 1962, on location in Rome, a fading movie star and his wife are entangled in an unraveling web of secrets, lies, and sexual impropriety that threatens to tear apart their family.
Featuring
David Strathairn
Maryann Plunkett
Haviland Morris
Jesse Pennington
John Rothman
Jessica Chastain
Playwrights Horizons: Franny’s Way (also Geffen Playhouse), Rodney’s Wife. Other Off-Broadway: Richard II, The False Servant, The General from America (also Alley), A Place at the Table, The Winter’s Tale, The Taming of the Shrew. Regional: Maple and Vine (Actors Theater of Louisville), Vera Laughed (NYS&F), Major Barbara (Guthrie), James Joyce’s The Dead (Huntington/ACT), Goodnight Children Everywhere (ACT).
Creative Team
Susan Hilferty
Costume DesignerDavid Weiner
Lighting DesignerScott Lehrer
Sound DesignerMatthew Silver
Production Stage ManagerSusan Hilferty has designed set and costumes for over 400 productions across the globe. Recent designs include Parade (Broadway), Funny Girl (Broadway), Swept Away (Arena Stage, Berkeley Rep), Hamlet (St. Anne’s Warehouse and Gate Theatre, Dublin), Little Comedies (Alley Theatre), and A Bright Room Called Day, (Public Theatre). Her many Broadway designs include Wicked (Tony, Outer Critics Circle, and Drama Desk awards and Olivier nomination), August Wilson’s Radio Golf, Present Laughter (Tony nomination), Hands on a Hardbody, Spring Awakening (Tony nomination), Lestat (Tony nomination), Annie (2013 Revival), Into the Woods (Tony and Drama Desk nominations; Hewes Award), and Frank Wildhorn’s Wonderland. Her designs for opera include Rigoletto, La Traviata, and the upcoming Aida for the Metropolitan Opera and Manon at LA Opera and Berlin Staatsoper. Hilferty has designed over a hundred off-Broadway productions including Richard Nelson’s Apple Family Plays, August Wilson’s Jitney and Athol Fugard’s Boesman and Lena.
Photos of (1) Maryann Plunkett and David Strathairn; (2) Jessica Chastain; (3) Jessica Chastain, Haviland Morris, Maryann Plunkett, and David Strathairn; and (4) Haviland Morris, John Rothman, Jessica Chastain, and Jesse Pennington by Joan Marcus.
Mr. Nelson offers a deep and sorrowful understanding of how much loneliness there often is in lust. At the same time he has created what may be the most incisive, unsensationalized portrait of a Hollywood wife ever to grace a stage. The ensemble members are masterly in sustaining the quiet aggression beneath the surface pleasantries.