As David Hare’s The Vertical Hour opens in Park 200, Jez Bond, Artistic Director of Park Theatre, announces the cast for the London première of Robert Holman’s Jonah and Otto. Tim Stark will direct Alex Waldmann as Jonah and Peter Egan opposite him as Otto. Both funny and haunting, the play 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.
“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 other 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.
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.
Robert Holman has had three Royal Court premières and three RSC premières. His 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 RSC and has also written a novel called The Amish Landscape.
Peter Egan plays Otto. His theatre credits include Other Desert Cities (Old Vic), First Love (Royal Lyceum), People, Noises Off, Engaged (National Theatre), The Secret of Sherlock Holmes (Duchess Theatre and UK tour), A Song at Twilight (UK tour), Hamlet (Theatre Royal Plymouth and Barbican), Art(Wyndham’s Theatre), Three Hotels (Tricycle Theatre), Déjà vu (Comedy Theatre), Barbarians, Richard III,Two Gentlemen of Verona, Camino Real (RSC), Madame Butterfly (Shaftesbury Theatre) and Uncle Vanya(Renaissance Theatre Company – Manchester Evening News Award winner). His television work includesDownton Abbey, Grantchester, My Family, Home Again, Jericho, Ever Decreasing Circles, A Perfect Spy,Prince Regent and Big Breadwinner Hog; and for film, Death at a Funeral, Man to Man, The Wedding Date,The I Inside, Chariots of Fire and The Hireling. He was also previously Artistic Director of The Mill at Sonning and has directed plays at The Lyric Hammersmith and The Savoy Theatre, London.
Alex Waldmann plays Jonah. His theatre credits include The Knight of the Burning Pestle, The Duchess of Malfi (Sam Wannamaker Playhouse), All’s Well That Ends Well, As You Like It, Hamlet, King John, A Soldier in Every Son and Richard III (RSC), The Holy Rosenbergs (National Theatre), Speechless (Shared Experience), Rope (Almeida Theatre), Hamlet and Twelfth Night (Donmar Warehouse West End) and Troilus & Cressida (Cheek by Jowl). His television work includes The Night Watch, Psychoville and First Light. He is also the founder of SEArED theatre company.
Tim Stark directs. Recent directing credits include Boxman and Bath Time (Edinburgh Fringe, Gilded Balloon), Pablo Neruda (David Eldridge’s play which formed part of the Royal Court’s Surprise Theatreseason), 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 (Royaland Derngate Theatre), Rafts and Dreams and Mayhem (Royal Exchange Theatre), Festen (Birmingham REP and national tour), Edward Bond’s Lear (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 Outand 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.
