Today Park Theatre Artistic Director Jez Bond announces the London première of Robert Holman’s Jonah and Otto which will run in Park 200 – the production opens on 29 October, with a preview on 28 October, and plays until 23 November. Jonah and Otto reunites playwright Robert Holman with director Tim Stark who previously directed Rafts and Dreams as part of the Holman season at the Manchester Royal Exchange in 2003, and acted in the original RSC production of Across Oka.
“God doesn’t care about you. Why should I?”
Over the course of a single day two men share their solitude and unfold their secrets. They disagree with each about women, about lust and about guilt. They question the power of magic, of redemption and the price of freedom, each seeing himself more clearly through the eyes of the other.
Both funny and haunting, Jonah and Otto was critically acclaimed when it first ran at the Royal Exchange in 2008. This will be the first Holman play to be produced in London since Making Noise Quietly at the Donmar Warehouse in 2012.
Robert Holman has had three Royal Court premières and three RSC premières. Hi plays include A Thousand Stars Explode in the Sky (collaboration with Simon Stephens and David Eldridge), Holes in the Skin, Bad Weather, Rafts and Dreams, Across Oka, Making Noise Quietly, The Overgrown Path, Today, Other Worlds, The Grave Lovers, The Natural Cause, German Skerries, Rooting and The Estuary. His television credits include This is History Gran, Chance of a Lifetime. He was Resident Dramatist at the National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company and has also written a novel called The Amish Landscape.
Tim Stark directs. Recent directing credits include Bath Time (Gilded Balloon), Pablo Neruda (David Eldridge’s play which formed part of the Royal Court’s Surprise Theatre season), Khadija is 18 (Finborough Theatre), Once and Future Plays (five short new plays by writers including Philip Ridley and Mark Ravenhill - site specific), Kurt and Sid (Trafalgar Studios), The Last Pilgrim (White Bear Theatre), Road (Royal and Derngate Theatre), Rafts and Dreams and Mayhem (Royal Exchange Theatre), Festen (Birmingham REP and national tour), Edward Bond’sLear (National Theatre Studio and Teatro Due International Theatre Festival), Shadow Language (Theatre 503),Twisted (Oval House), Romeo and Juliet (English Touring Theatre and Hong Kong Arts Festival), Julius Caesar(Teatro Due International Theatre Festival and Verona Shakespeare Festival), Cardiff East, Over Gardens Out and In the Blue (Teatro Due International Theatre Festival). He is a winner of the John S. Cohen Directors Bursary at the National Theatre Studio and English Touring Theatre and a founding member of B29 Productions.
