Oscar winner Rachel Weisz returns to NY stage in “Plenty”

PanARMENIAN.Net - Rachel Weisz will return to the New York stage next season in an off-Broadway revival of David Hare's Plenty, The Hollywood Reporter said.

Staged by David Leveaux, the production returns Hare's drama of postwar British disillusionment to the Public Theater, where the play had its U.S. premiere in 1982 before transferring to Broadway.

Weisz will play Susan Traherne, a former British intelligence agent who worked behind enemy lines in occupied France during World War II. That personal history is presented in stark contrast to her mundane life over the two decades of peacetime that followed, during which she has become the increasingly depressed wife of a diplomat.

Kate Nelligan originated the role at London's National Theatre before reprising it at the Public opposite Kelsey Grammer and Dominic Chianese. Meryl Streep played Susan in the 1985 screen adaptation, and Cate Blanchett took on the role in a 1999 London revival.

The Public staging, scheduled for the 2016-17 theater season, with dates still to be set, marks the play's first major New York revival. Additional cast is to be announced.

Weisz last appeared onstage in New York starring opposite her husband, Daniel Craig, and Rafe Spall in Mike Nichols' 2013 Broadway revival of Harold Pinter's Betrayal.

Craig also has lined up an off-Broadway gig for the 2016-17 season, starring alongside David Oyelowo in a production of Shakespeare's Othello, directed by 2015 Tony winner Sam Gold.