Matthew Broderick is to star at the Abbey Theatre this summer in the David Ireland play Ulster American. The US actor, who rose to prominence in films such as WarGames and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, in the 1980s, and has won two Tony Awards, will appear in the Irish Repertory Theatre’s visiting production.
The Abbey describes the play, which runs from August 12th to 22nd, as a “theatrical hand grenade disguised as a drawingroom comedy” that targets “the intersection of identity politics, ego, privilege and the Northern Irish Troubles with satirical precision”. Tickets go on sale in early June.
The national theatre has also announced that it will stage Animals, a “provocative and absurdist spectacle” based on the short stories of Blindboy Boatclub, directed by Dan Colley, the following month; and Visions, by Eoghan Quinn, in October. In that play, “set in a historic ballroom in Dublin city centre, relationships fray, values are tested and secrets spill out when a sparkling relic of the past threatens the launch of a tech start-up”. It will be directed by Claire O’Reilly.
Animals and Visions will run as part of Dublin Theatre Festival.
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The Abbey is also supporting two theatremakers to develop a script and present a work-in-progress performance at Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August, followed by a presentation at the Young Vic, in London, in October, in partnership with the Scottish festival’s Shedinburgh venue.
They are Bulk, a multidisciplinary work about gym culture and addiction, written and directed by Shaun Dunne; and A Ghost in the Throat, based on the book by Doireann Ní Ghríofa, adapted for the stage by Ursula Rani Sarma.
