The American blockbuster stars David Harbour and Bill Pullman are to share the stage in London this summer for the world premiere of a family drama by Theresa Rebeck.
Mad House, directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel, presents a rancorous reunion in rural Pennsylvania for three siblings who gather at the bedside of their dying father and anticipate their share of inheritance.
Harbour – whose screen credits include Suicide Squad, Hellboy and Stranger Things (as police chief Jim Hopper) – described Mad House as a “blistering new dark comedy” that he was excited to bring to London. “It features two of my favourite things: the abyss of madness that lies at the pit of every family as they stare blankly, incomprehensibly into the nature of our fleeting existence, and real estate.”
The West End production begins previews on 15 June at the Ambassadors theatre, which is currently presenting a revival of Mike Bartlett’s comedy Cock by Marianne Elliott.
Harbour has appeared in plays by Shakespeare, David Mamet and Tom Stoppard in the US. In 2005, he starred with Kathleen Turner in a Broadway production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee that transferred to London the following year. Pullman, whose US theatre credits also include Mamet and Albee plays, appeared in a 2019 production of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons at the Old Vic in London. His film credits include Trouble (2017), written and directed by Rebeck. Pullman and Harbour previously starred together in the film The Equalizer.
Rebeck and von Stuelpnagel’s past collaborations include the 2018 Broadway production Bernhardt/Hamlet, starring Janet McTeer as the French actor Sarah Bernhardt as she takes on the role of Shakespeare’s tragic prince. Rebeck said of Mad House: “There are those projects when the stars simply align, and to see David and Bill together on stage is beyond my wildest dreams. I’m very much looking forward to being back in the rehearsal room with Moritz.”
