Michelle Dockery cast in Donmar's Les Liaisons Dangereuses
- Published
Les Liaisons Dangereuses will star Michelle Dockery, Dominic West and Janet McTeer
Downton Abbey star Michelle Dockery and actor Dominic West will star in a 30th anniversary revival of Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Donmar Warehouse.
Dockery, who plays Lady Mary in ITV's hit period drama, will play Madame de Tourvel in the production, heading up the London theatre's autumn season.
Janet McTeer and West co-star as ruthless former lovers Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont.
Artistic director Josie Rourke will helm Christopher Hampton's play.
Les Liaisons Dangereuses is based on the scandalous 1782 novel by Choderlos de Laclos, which told of sex, intrigue and betrayal amongst aristocrats in pre-revolutionary France.
Its first theatre production 30 years ago starred Alan Rickman, Juliet Stevenson and Lesley Manville and won both the Olivier and Evening Standard Awards for best play.
Hampton went on to win an Oscar for best adapted screenplay for the 1988 film version starring Glenn Close, John Malkovich and Michelle Pfeiffer.
"I have long wanted to direct Christopher Hampton's superb Les Liaisons Dangereuses," said Rourke, "and the cast we have drawn together is a testament to the brilliance of his play."
Along with his stage work, West has appeared in TV dramas The Wire, The Hour and The Affair, while McTeer was recently seen in acclaimed drama The Honourable Woman and The White Queen.
'Strong women'
Other highlights at the 250-seat theatre this autumn include the first major London run of Abi Morgan's early play Splendour, which will star Zawe Ashton, Sinead Cusack, Michelle Fairley and Genevieve O'Reilly.
Morgan has since gone on to write films such as The Iron Lady, Shame and the forthcoming Suffragette.
Splendour tells the story of a photojournalist at the heart of a coup in an eastern European state and will be directed by associate director Robert Hastie.
Fresh Meat star Zawe Ashton and Sinead Cusack will appear in Splendour
"One of the things that most excites me about this season is the strong leading roles for women," said Rourke.
"It is a thrill to announce a season of work that features, in plays by living writers, women of the calibre and power of Zawe Ashton, Sinead Cusack, Michelle Dockery, Michelle Fairley, Genevieve O'Reilly and Janet McTeer, who returns to the Donmar and the London stage."
The Royal Court's former artistic director Dominic Cooke will direct the UK Premiere of Teddy Ferrara, Christopher Shinn's play about a student tragedy which sends a campus into turmoil.
This autumn will also see the transfer of Phyllida Lloyd's all-female Henry IV to St Ann's Warehouse in New York. Lloyd has just been announced as the theatre's new associate director.
Theatre fans who missed out on Rourke's award-winning production of Coriolanus, starring Tom Hiddleston, will have the chance to catch it on screen in UK cinemas as part of the National Theatre Live Encore screenings.