The world premiere of a new play by Anders Lustgarten
Directed by Roland Jaquarello
Designed by Vanessa Hawkins
Lighting by Gabriel Phillips-Sanchez
Sound Design by David Sharrock.
Presented by Giant Steps in association with Neil McPherson for the Finborough Theatre
Cast in order of appearance
Susan McFarlane – Lisa Eichhorn
Tom McFarlane – Vincent Riotta
Hanna Schneider – Fiz Marcus
Ray Villapiano – Charlie Roe
Sophia Villapiano – Anna Savva
Linda Brown – Anna Savva
Park Attendant – Charlie Roe
The Mad Dog – Charlie Roe
Diane Roberts – Fiz Marcus
Jessica Taylor – Anna Savva
[ finboroughplaywrights season ]
6 August – 30 August 2008
“I got a quarter-sized piece of my son in that box there and the question is why.”
When Tom and Susan, a New Jersey couple, lose their son in the attack on the twin towers, it begins to affect their marriage, friends and community…
As Tom’s grief forces him to question the post 9/11 orthodoxy, he finds himself not only at odds with his wife, but also with the government itself. As the neighbours take sides, shock jocks rant, conspiracy theories abound and politicians wave the flag, Tom and Susan are pushed to breaking point as one particular political clique appropriates a nation’s mourning.
The cast includes Lisa Eichhorn, Fiz Marcus, Vincent Riotta, Charlie Roe and Anna Savva. Nominated for a BAFTA and two Golden Globe Awards, Lisa Eichhorn’s credits include Shadowlands (Salisbury), Tobaccoland , The Misfits, Winding the Ball (Royal Exchange, Manchester), Woman of Lockerbie (Orange Tree Theatre), Golden Boy (National Theatre), The Speed of Darkness, The Common Pursuit (Off Broadway), Any Given Day (Broadway) and extensive Television and Film credits including King of the Hill, A Modern Affair, The Weather in the Streets, Cutter’s Way (Best Actress Deauville), The Europeans (BAFTA nomination), Yanks (2 Golden Globe nominations), Midsomer Murders, Spooks, Law and Order, Jericho and Inspector Morse; Fiz Marcus’s credits include Equus (UK National Tour), Star Quality (Apollo Theatre), A Man With Connections (Minerva Theatre Chichester and Finborough Theatre), A Kind of Alaska (Orange Tree Theatre), Private Lives (Basingstoke), Red Princess (Red Shift), A Small Family Business (Chichester);Vincent Riotta’s credits include Measure for Measure, Romeo and Juliet, Flashpoint (Young Vic), Salome (National Theatre), A Streetcar Named Desire, All My Sons (Leicester) and numerous TV and Film credits include Revolver, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Under the Tuscan Sun, Heaven, Babylon 5, Monk and Alias;Charlie Roe has been seen inA Few Good Men (Theatre Royal Haymarket), Electra (Gate Theatre), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (English Touring Theatre), The Winter’s Tale (Young Vic), The Tempest (Cheek by Jowl), As You Like It (National Theatre), Philoctetes (Cheek by Jowl), Troilus and Cressida (Royal Shakespeare Company), Ting Tang Mine (National Theatre); Anna Savva was nominated for Best Actress by Time Out for her performance as Frida Kahlo in Frida and Diego (Red Shift Theatre). Her other credits include The Battle of Green Lanes (Theatre Royal Stratford East), and roles at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Glasgow Citizens' Theatre, Liverpool Playhouse, Theatr Clywd, Library Theatre, Manchester, Royal Exchange, Manchester, and the Haymarket Theatre, Leicester. Her extensive Television and Film credits include The Quiet Assassin, EastEnders, Silent Witness and London’s Burning.
Playwright Anders Lustgarten’s first play The Insurgents, a comic drama about Kurdish immigration and political resistance to globalisation, was produced as part of a double bill A Letter To England at the Finborough Theatre in 2007, while Enduring Freedom received workshops through the Finborough Theatre’s literary department in both March 2007 and April 2008. Anders is currently also under commission at the Soho Theatre. A British writer of American parentage, Anders has also worked as a political activist during which he has found himself barred from British prisons and arrested by the Turkish secret police.
Director Roland Jaquarello has been a Resident Director at the Abbey Theatre Dublin, and Artistic Director of the Lyric Theatre Belfast, the Redgrave Theatre Farnham, the Live Theatre Newcastle, and his own company Green Fields and Far Away which toured Irish work in the UK. He has also worked as a Senior Producer with Radio Drama BBC Northern Ireland. His many productions include After The Fall, All My Sons, The Iceman Cometh, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Mrs Warren’s Profession (Lyric Belfast), The School for Scandal , Escurial, Fando and Lis and Picnic On The Battlefield (Abbey Theatre Dublin), Miss Julie, The Exception and The Rule, The Car Cemetery (Welsh Drama Co), A Touch Of The Poet, The Shadow Of A Gunman (Green Fields), George Dandin and The Playboy Of The Western World with Conleth Hill (Redgrave Farnham), Slawomir Mrozek’s Police (Dublin), It’s A Two Foot Six Inches Above The Ground World (National Tour), Androcles and The Lion with Bill Nighy and Julie Walters ( Everyman Liverpool), An Inspector Calls with Jeremy Irons (Peterborough), and Ernst Toller’s Hinkemann with Ray Winstone (Old Red Lion). He has also directed many new plays including Hatchet by Heno Magee (Abbey Theatre Dublin and Half Moon Theatre London, with Colm Meaney), King Herod Advises by Conor Cruise O’Brien (Abbey Theatre Dublin), The Ikon Maker by Desmond Hogan (Green Fields tour and Gate London), The Rise and Fall Of Barney Kerrigan by Frank Dunne with Liam Neeson, Culture Vultures by Robin Glendinning and The Butterfly Of Killybegs by Brian Foster (both Lyric Belfast). His work in broadcasting includes work by Brian Friel, Sebastian Barry and John Arden for Radio 3. For Radio 4, his many productions include work by Colm McCann, Gary Mitchell, Kaite O’Reilly, John Arden, Larry Gelbart, Mark Lawson and J.M. Synge. William Trevor’s The Property Of Colette Nervi which he produced was nominated for the Prix Italia Play Section in 1990, and An Enemy Of The People, for Radio 3, recently won an O.Z. Whitehead Award from the Irish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild for Best Radio Script 2007. www.rolandjaquarello.com
Designer Vanessa Hawkins was nominated for Best Set Design in the Irish Times Theatre Awards for The Butterfly of Killybegs, also directed by Roland Jaquarello, at the Lyric Theatre Belfast.
The Press on director Roland Jaquarello
“Excellently directed by Roland Jaquarello.” Time Out on Hatchet.
“The playing in Roland Jaquarello’s production could hardly be better.” The Financial Times on Hatchet.
“Roland Jaquarello’s production has all the right spasms of violence, emotional, restraint and excess and he is served by a superlative cast.” The Guardian on Flashpoint.
“Roland Jaquarello’s excellent revival.”Time Out on Flashpoint.
“Roland Jaquarello’s production captures the drama’s considerable richness.” The Daily Telegraph on Naked.
“Roland Jaquarello’s direction is elegant with a nice touch of the abstract and intelligent performances.” The Times on Thirty Pieces of Silver.
“A splendid production, nicely paced and full of light and shade.” Time Out onThe Man with the Flower in his Mouth.
“Roland Jaquarello’s production strikes a fine and courageous equation between art and political engagement.”The Times on Culture Vultures.
“This fine production by Roland Jaquarello.” The Times on After the Fall.
“’Roland Jaquarello’s fine and steady production.’’ The Times on The Iceman Cometh
The Press on Enduring Freedom
Selected in coming Top Five Theatre openings. Benedict Nightingale, The Times
“Anders Lustgarten’s play unsentimentally evokes the post-9/11 grief and paranoia that gripped America.” Carol Gordon, Whatsonstage.com
“Balanced and unsentimental.” Natasha Tripney, The Stage
“Enduring Freedom (director Roland Jaquarello) has great dialogue and a talented creative crew.” Vera Liber, British Theatre Guide
“The play presents no pat answers, giving the audience plenty to chew on as they head back to the bar.” Carol Gordon, Whatsonstage.com
“With a backdrop of a stonewashed US flag and soundtracked by Springsteen, Young and Dylan, Enduring Freedom is a thoughtful meditation on loss and differing definitions of patriotism.”
Ian Sinclair, Morning Star
“No let-up to the emotional turbulence and intensity of this thought-provoking piece. Well worth a visit if you like your drama full-on.” Carol Gordon, Whatsonstage.com
“Lustgarten does an incredible job of bringing the perspective of the American people to Britain.” Alan Taylor, Extra! Extra!
“It's when he portrays the awful mess of an ordinary marriage, tumbling to oblivion, that his undeniable talent, and this feisty…production, finds its heart, its urgency and its thrilling lick of the new.” Lucy Powell, Time Out
“Anders Lustgarten's fury fairly screams from his new 9/11 play.” Lucy Powell, Time Out
“Touching, yet inspiring and full of impact” Alan Taylor, Extra! Extra!
“The kind of inspired art that comes from such a devastating political statement.” Alan Taylor, Extra! Extra!
“Powerful new writing with an absolutely crystal clear point, Enduring Freedom brings the heart of injustice into a productive forum.” Alan Taylor, Extra! Extra!
“Anders Lustgarten's beautifully written, compact, ironically titled, new 9/11 play, Enduring Freedom, part of the doughty Finborough's playwrights season (August - November 2008: "Four new plays by playwrights discovered and nurtured by The Finborough Theatre"). A new play opening when eyes are diverted shows supreme confidence in its stable of new writers on the Finborough's part.” Vera Liber British Theatre Guide
“Led by director Roland Jaquarello, his confident interpretation brings power to the piece.” Alan Taylor, Extra! Extra!
“The performances from the cast are without exception strong and compelling.” Carol Gordon, Whatsonstage.com
“A strong and very experienced cast” Alan Taylor, Extra! Extra!
“Anna Savva…a brilliant job of not only playing different roles, but emphasising how difficult it was for the most happy-go-lucky people to ‘get on with it’.” Alan Taylor, Extra! Extra!
“Fiz Marcus is quietly confident and strong” Alan Taylor, Extra! Extra!
“Anna Savva brings force to the friend’s wife and a self-promoting nonentity in the political arena.” Timothy Ramsden, Reviewsgate
“The acting is top notch from a cast of five playing ten roles. Lisa Eichhorn and Vincent Riotta as the disorientated tragic couple are affecting. Charlie Roe shows off his acting and vocal range in three supporting roles as Tom's colleague and best friend, gravel-voiced foul-mouthed 'Mad Dog', and Park Attendant. Fiz Marchus demonstrates dignity in sorrow as Hanna, and Hilary Clintonesque poise as the Republican congresswoman; and husky-voiced Anna Savva with a flick of a new hairstyle brings wit to her sarcastic Brit, her selfish sister-in-law, and concerned friend.” Vera Liber The British Theatre Guide
“The remarkable cast of actors bring maturity and emotional integrity to the piece.” Alan Taylor, Extra! Extra!
“The performances of the five-man cast are all strong, particularly Vincent Riotta as the rage-consumed Tom” Natasha Tripney, The Stage
“Fiz Marcus's switch from Machiavellian congresswoman to September 11 widow is very impressive" Ian Sinclair, Morning Star
“A pair of supremely dextrous performances from Lisa Eichhorn and Vincent Riotta” Lucy Powell, Time Out
“Vincent Riotta and Lisa Eichhorn give exemplary performances as the emotional drained and conflicted middle-class New Jersey couple.” Ian Sinclair, Morning Star
“ Eichhorn's portrayal of a woman broken by her son's death and husband's alienation is both sweet and moving.” Jill Hilbrenner, Londonnet
“A hard-working, largely multi-role-playing cast, led by Lisa Eichhorn as Susan and Vincent Riotta as Tom” Sam Marlowe, The Times
“Fiz Marcus…compelling as both the bereaved Hanna and a subtly manipulative congresswoman.” Natasha Tripney, The Stage
“Riotta presents a believable portrait of a man who not only loses his son but his country too.” Ian Sinclair, Morning Star
“The set design by Vanessa Hawkins brings a really interesting aspect to the play.” Alan Taylor, Extra! Extra!
“The show's main prop - an interactive wooden American flag - is inventive, proving why designer Vanessa Hawkins (Hollyoaks), was nominated for best set design by the Irish Times Theatre Awards” Jill Hilbrenner, Londonnet
“Vanessa Hawkins’s economical but effective set design has the American flag painted in bleak black and white, the colours bleeding into one another.” Natasha Tripney, The Stage
“Vanessa Hawkins's simple monochrome set of a black and white Jasper Johns style American flag, its colours bleeding, defines and encapsulates the play's mood.” Vera Liber, The British Theatre Guide
“The Finborough's intimate performance space enhances the play's claustrophobic familial conflicts and one-on-one conversations” Ian Sinclair, Morning Star
“Gabriel Phillips-Sanchez's film noir crepuscular lighting (these are dark times) draws the viewer in” Vera Liber, The British Theatre Guide
“David Sharrock's choice of scene-change-supporting songs and George W Bush's voiceover eloquently underlines Lustgarten's political point.” Vera Liber British Theatre Guide
