Performances run 8 June – 23 July.
The Orange Tree Theatre today announces the full cast for Pierre Marivaux's The False Servant, translated by Martin Crimp, whose prolific international career began at the Orange Tree Theatre, including the recent hit revival of Dealing with Clair. Before his final season as Artistic Director of the OT, Paul Miller, directs Uzair Bhatti, Will Brown, Julian Moore-Cook, Phoebe Pryce, Lizzy Watts and Silas Wyatt-Barke. The production opens on 13 June, with previews on 8 June, and runs until 23 July, with a livestreamed performance via OT On Screen on Thursday 7 July and available to stream on demand 26-29 July.
Directed by Paul Miller; Design by Simon Daw; Lighting Design by Mark Doubleday; Sound Design and Composer Liz Purnell; Casting Consultant Vicky Richardson; Costume Supervisor Sarah Frances;
Deputy Stage Manager Julia Crammer; Assistant Stage Manager Jamie Craker
Performances run 8 June - 23 July.
When a man thinks he can cynically take a Rich Woman's money and then run off with an even more lucrative potential fiancée, he'd best not tell the fiancée by mistake. Le Chevalier, a woman disguised as the son of an aristocrat, embarks on a plan that will expose the dark heart of this male power-play.
This version by Martin Crimp was acclaimed at its 2004 National Theatre première by The Daily Telegraph: "Thrills, chills, and belly laughs - this addictively adult comedy has got the lot."
Uzair Bhatti plays Frontin. His theatre credits include East is East (Octagon Theatre); and his television credits include Extraordinary.
Will Brown plays Trivelin. His theatre credits include The Duchess of Malfi, The Fantastic Follies of Mrs Rich (Royal Shakespeare Company), Inheritance Blues (Hightide Festival, Soho Theatre, Sheffield Crucible and West Yorkshire Playhouse), The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe (Redgrave Theatre), Fade (DugOut Theatre), The Journey (Pleasance Theatre). His television credits include The Outlaws, Disability Benefits, The B@IT, The Nevers, Midsomer Murders, Unforgotten, Call the Midwife, Doctor Who, Spotless, and for film; Death of Zygielbojm, HAAR and Extinction.
Julian Moore-Cook returns to the Orange Tree to play Lelio - he previously performed in While the Sun Shines and The Rolling Stone. His other theatre credits include Translations (National Theatre), The Lieutenant of Innishmore (Noël Coward Theatre), Dublin Carol (The Sherman Theatre), Mother Courage and Her Children (Southwark Playhouse), Three Sisters (Lyric Theatre Belfast), The Beggars Opera (Regent's Park Open Air Theatre), Our American Cousin (Finborough Theatre), Twelfth Night (Iris Theatre) and ObamAmerica (Theatre503). His television credits include Derry Girls, Kate and Koji, The Peripheral, Endeavour, Peaky Blinders, Benidorm, Shakespeare and Hathaway, 24 and Live Another Day; and for film, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, Ballywalter.
Phoebe Pryce plays Countess. Her theatre credits include The Night Watch, Cash Cow (Hampstead Theatre), The Picture of Dorian Gray (UK tour), About Leo (Jermyn Street Theatre), Passage to India (Park Theatre/UK tour), The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Octagon Theatre/Theatre Royal York), The Merchant of Venice, The Tempest (Shakespeare's Globe) and Charlie's Dark Angel (The Drayton Arms Theatre). Her television credits include The Girlfriend Experience; and for film, The Lost King, The Merchant of Venice and Plus One.
Lizzy Watts returns to the Orange Tree to play The Chevalier - she previously performed in Dealing with Clair. Her other theatre credits include Either (Hampstead Theatre), Hedda Gabler (Nation Theatre UK tour), Strife (Chichester Festival Theatre), The Angry Brigade (Bush Theatre), God of Chaos, Merit (Theatre Royal Plymouth), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare's Globe international tour), Blink (Soho Theatre), Twelfth Night (Filter Theatre), Wasted (Roundhouse Theatre), Artefacts (Bush Theatre), The Man (Finborough Theatre) and Eight (Bedlam Theatre). Her television credits include Professor T, Call the Midwife, Endeavour, and The Durrells.
Silas Wyatt-Barke plays Arlequin. His theatre credits include The Prince of Egypt (Dominion Theatre), Twelfth Night (Young Vic), As You Like It (Regent's Park Open Air Theatre), Much Ado About Nothing (Rose Theatre), Dr Seuss's The Lorax (The Old Vic), Forty Years On (Chichester Festival Theatre), The Emperor and the Nightingale (Theatre by the Lake), The Go Between (Apollo Theatre), and Sunny Afternoon (Harold Pinter Theatre). His film credits include Benjamin.
Martin Crimp was born in 1956 and began writing for theatre in the 1980s, with many of his early plays produced by the Orange Tree. His plays include When we have sufficiently tortured each other (2019), Men Asleep (2018), The Rest Will be Familiar To You From Cinema, (2013, voted by Germany's Theater heute best foreign play of the year), In the Republic of Happiness (2012), Play House (2012), The City (2008), Fewer Emergencies (2005, receiving Italy's Premio Ubu), Cruel and Tender (2004, written for director Luc Bondy), Face to the Wall (2002), The Country (2000), Attempts on her Life (1997), The Treatment (1993, winner of the John Whiting Award), Getting Attention (1992), No One Sees the Video (1991), Play with Repeats (1989), Dealing with Clair (1988) and Definitely the Bahamas (1987). His translations of plays include Botho Strauss's Gross und Klein (2012), Ionesco's Rhinoceros (2007), Marivaux's The False Servant (2004) and The Triumph of Love (1999), Genet's The Maids (1999), Ionesco's The Chairs (1997), Koltès's Roberto Zucco (1997), a new version of Chekhov's The Seagull (2006), and adaptations of Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac (2019) and Molière's The Misanthrope (1996). His work has been produced in the UK by the Royal Shakespeare Company, The National Theatre, Almeida, Young Vic, Barbican, Théâtre de Complicité, the Orange Tree and the Royal Court, and has been translated into many languages and widely produced abroad at venues including the Piccolo Teatro, Milan, the Sala Beckett, Barcelona, the Vienna Festival, the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, the Théâtre de la Ville, Berlin's Schaubühne, Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg, and at the Festival d'Automne in Paris, which presented four of his works in their 2006 season, including his first text for opera, Into the Little Hill, written for George Benjamin. His second collaboration with Benjamin, Written on Skin, had its world premiere at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 2012, and the third, Lessons in Love and Violence, opened at London's Royal Opera House in 2018. In 2020 he was awarded the Nyssen-Bansemer Theatre Prize.
Paul Miller is Artistic Director of the Orange Tree where he has directed Terence Rattigan's While the Sun Shines and French Without Tears (also tour with English Touring Theatre), Bernard Shaw's How He Lied to Her Husband, Overruled, Candida, Misalliance, The Philanderer and Widowers' Houses, Jo Clifford's Losing Venice, Charlotte Jones' Humble Boy, Lot Vekemans' Poison, Marivaux's The Lottery of Love, Somerset Maughan's Sheppey, Doris Lessing's Each His Own Wilderness and The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd by DH Lawrence. Between 2009 and 2014 he was an Associate Director at Sheffield Theatres, where his productions included Wonderful Tennessee by Brian Friel, The Winter's Tale, The Daughter-in-Law by DH Lawrence, Democracy by Michael Frayn (which transferred to The Old Vic), Hamlet with John Simm and True West by Sam Shepard. For The National Theatre he has directed The History Boys (revival for the West End and UK tour), Baby Girl by Roy Williams, DNA by Dennis Kelly, The Miracle by Lin Coghlan, The Enchantment by Victoria Benedictsson, Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads by Roy Williams in the Cottesloe, and The Associate by Simon Bent in The Loft. Other work includes Macbeth (Chichester Festival Theatre); Elling, adapted by Simon Bent (Trafalgar Studios); The History Boys (Center Theatre Group, LA); Total Eclipse by Christopher Hampton (Menier Chocolate Factory); French Without Tears by Terence Rattigan (ETT); Not the Love I Cry For by Robin Hooper (Arcola); A Life in the Theatre by David Mamet (Setagaya Public Theatre, Japan); Sugar Sugar, Goldhawk Road, Bad Company by Simon Bent and Kingfisher Blue by Lin Coghlan (Bush Theatre), Mercy by Lin Coghlan (Soho); The Marriage of Figaro (English Touring Opera at Hackney Empire); Mean Tears by Peter Gill, Accomplices by Simon Bent and Mr England by Richard Bean (Sheffield Theatres); Honeymoon Suite by Richard Bean (Royal Court); Fragile Land by Tanika Gupta (Hampstead); Four Knights in Knaresborough by Paul Webb (UK tour); A Penny for a Song by John Whiting (Oxford Stage Company/Whitehall Theatre); Tragedy: A Tragedy by Will Eno (Gate); Hushabye Mountain by Jonathan Harvey (ETT/Hampstead); Rosmersholm by Ibsen (Southwark Playhouse) and The Robbers by Schiller (Latchmere).
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