David Mamet's new play, Bitter Wheat, to premiere in June starring John Malkovich
29 January 2019
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The multi award-winning John Malkovich returns to the West End stage after nearly 30 years to play Barney Fein, a top dog Hollywood producer in Bitter Wheat, a new play by the legendary author, director and playwright David Mamet. It will preview at the Garrick Theatre on Friday 7 June 2019 with a press night on Wednesday 19 June 2019 and will be directed by Mamet.
Malkovich, one of the world’s most revered actors, is best known for his many films including Dangerous Liaisons, Being John Malkovich, Con Air and Mulholland Drive. He recently received widespread critical acclaim playing Hercule Poirot in a new BBC TV Agatha Christie adaptation.
The Pulitzer prize winning David Mamet has written some of the most iconic plays of the last 50 years including Sexual Perversity in Chicago, American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross, Speed-the-Plow, and Oleanna.
Doon Mackichan, who is well known for her extensive TV work which includes creating and starring in the hit comedy series Smack the Pony for Channel 4, Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge, Plebs for ITV2 and Two Doors Down for the BBC, will play Barney Fein’s assistant, Sondra.
Ioanna Kimbook will make her debut theatre performance in Bitter Wheat as Yung Kim Li. Further casting is to be announced.
Hollywood is a hell hole.
Everything in Hollywood is for sale except the awards, which are for rent.
Bitter Wheat is a play about a depraved Hollywood mogul. It rips the pashmina off the suppurating wound which is show business, and leaves us better human beings, and fitter to once more confront the horror of life.
Our hero, Barney Fein, is a bloated monster- a studio head, who, like his predecessor, the minotaur, devours the young he has lured to his cave.
His fall from power to shame is a mythic journey which has been compared to The Odyssey by people who claim to have read that book.
A new play starring John Malkovich, written and directed by David Mamet in a good mood.
Funnier than The Iceman Cometh, more chaos than Richard III, and without all the stupid, so-called ‘poetry’.
Money, sex, power, you only need one of them to see Bitter Wheat - at the Garrick.
Joining Mamet on the creative team are designer Christopher Oram and lighting designer Neil Austin.
Bitter Wheat is produced by Jeffrey Richards and Smith & Brant Theatricals.
For more information, please see www.bitterwheatplay.com
BITTER WHEAT Written and directed by David Mamet Set & Costume Design by Christopher Oram Lighting by Neil Austin
GARRICK THEATRE Charing Cross Road London WC2H 0HH
SOCIAL MEDIA Website: www.bitterwheatplay.com Facebook: @bitterwheatplay Twitter: @bitterwheatplay
Biographies
John Malkovich (Barney Fein)
John Malkovich began his career as an actor and director and original member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago. there he acted in numerous plays, among them True West, Of Mice and Men, The Libertine, The Glass Menagerie, Big Mother , The Dumb Waiter, and many more. As a director at Steppenwolf he staged many plays, including Absent Friends, No Man’s Land, The Caretaker, Coyote Ugly , A Prayer for my Daughter, The House, Hysteria, Balm in Gilead and with the American novelist Don Delillo, he adapted and directed Libra.
He began acting in movies in 1983, the first film he appeared in being The Killing Fields. He has since appeared in numerous films, including Places in the Heart, Death of a Salesman, The Ogre, Dangerous Liaisons, The Object of Beauty, Empire of the Sun, Con Air, Being John Malkovich, In the Line of Fire, Le Temps Retrouvé, Klimt, Film Falaldo, Je Rentre à la Maison, Mary Reilly, Rounders, The Great Buck Howard, Burn After Reading, Red 1, Red 2, Deepwater Horizon, and 70 or 80 other films as well.
He has also worked as a fashion designer, having designed 24 menswear collections and as a producer in both theatre and film. With his production partners Lianne Nalfon and Russell Smith, their company Mr.Mudd- produced Ghost World, Juno, Art School Confidential, The Perks of Bing a Wallflower, Demolition, along with a number of documentaries.
He directed one feature length film, The Dancer Upstairs, and numerous short films, including three in collaboration with the fashion designer Bella Freud; Straphanging, Lady Behave, and Hideous Man.
In the last decade he’s worked extensively with colleagues in the field of classical music, creating with them a number of hybrid pieces, including three pieces with conductor Martin Haselbock and writer/ director Michael Sturminger; The Infernal Comedy, The Giacomo Variations, and Just Call Me God. He also still tours with a piece called Report on the Blind, which he does with Russian pianist Anastasia Terankova, and tours also with a creation of the composer/violinist Aleksey Igudesman which is titled The Music Critic. He shot seven movies and three television series in the last year, including two seasons of Billions, and three episodes for the BBC adaptation of the Agatha Christie novel The ABC Murders. He appeared in Bird Box, and finished The New Pope, directed by Paolo Sorrentino earlier this Spring.
He directed three plays in Paris in the last decade, as well as one in Spain and one in Mexico City and in 2016, he directed The Good Canary by Zach Helm at the Rose Theatre in Kingston. He is honoured to have worked with such writers as Christopher Hampton, Tom Stoppard, Harold Pinter, Terry Johnson, Stephen Jeffries, Sarah Phelps, Neil Cross, Sam Shepard, Robert Benton and Landford Wilson, and such directors as Manuel de Oliveira, Raul Ruiz, Joel and Ethan Coen, Alex Gabassi, Bernardo Bertolucci, Michelangelo Antonioni, Stephen Frears, Nicholas Roeg, Volker Schlondorff, Stephen Spielberg, Susanne Bier, Lilianna Cavani, Spike Jonze, Jane Campion and Paolo Sorrentino.
Bitter Wheat is John’s first opportunity to work with David Mamet, and will mark his return to the West End stage after a very long absence.
Doon Mackichan (Sondra)
Doon trained at Manchester University Department of Drama.
Doon is perhaps best known for her extensive work in comedy as both a writer and an actress. Her notable credits include, the two-time Emmy nominated Channel 4 series, Smack the Pony, BBC1 sitcom, Beast, Knowing me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge also on the BBC and Toast of London, for which Doon received a nomination for Best Actress at the British Comedy Awards. Doon is also known for playing the role of Cathy in four series of Two Doors Down on the BBC.
Recently in Television, Doon starred in Death on the Tyne. She will be next seen comedy drama, Pure, for Channel 4. Doon starred in Ben Wheatley’s feature film, Happy New Year, Colin Burstead, which premiered at the BFI London Film Festival and subsequently aired on BBC2. Later this year, Doon will appear in BBC series, Good Omens alongside David Tennant, Michael Sheen and Miranda Richardson. In theatre, Doon most recently starred in the National Theatre’s production of Twelfth Night directed by Simon Godwin. Other credits include Loot at the Tricycle Theatre, The Government Inspector at the Young Vic, The Queen and I, in which she played Princess Diana at the Royal Court in conjunction with Jim Cartwright's ROAD, before going to Leicester Haymarket. Doon was in the Olivier nominated production of Jumpy for the Royal Court/ Duke of York's Theatre, for which she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress In A Play at the Whatsonstage.com Awards in 2012. Additionally, Doon appeared in Mother Courage at the National Theatre in the role of Yvette.
Ioanna Kimbook (Yung Kim Li)
Iona trained at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School where her theatre included: Dracula, The Wizard of Oz, Blue/Orange, You For Me For You, Under Milk Wood, Chosen Skin, Jason and the Argonauts, Constellations, The Beaux Stratagem, The Merchant of Venice, The Seagull, While Shepherds Watch, Flare Path, Our Country’s Good (BOVTS); Measure for Measure (Wanamaker Festival).
Film includes: Wedding Snaps.
Bitter Wheat marks Ioanna’s West End debut.
Christopher Oram (Set & Costume Designer)
Theatre includes: Red (also Donmar and NYC), Photograph 51, Henry V, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Cripple of Inishmaan (also NYC), Peter and Alice, Privates on Parade (MGC/West End), Hughie (MGC/NYC) Macbeth (Manchester International Festival & Park Avenue Armory, NYC), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Richard Rogers/NYC), Frozen (St James Theatre/NYC), Company (Sheffield Crucible), The Lieutenant of Inishmore (The Other Place & Noel Coward) The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, A Streetcar Named Desire, Othello, Grand Hotel, World Music, King Lear, Passion, Parade, Frost/Nixon (Donmar Warehouse), Hamlet, Madame de Sade, Twelfth Night, Ivanov (Donmar/Wyndham’s), Man and Superman, Summerfolk, Danton’s Death, Stuff Happens, Power, The Marriage Play/Finding the Sun (National Theatre), Backbeat (Glasgow Citizen’s), Evita (Adelphi & NYC), Guys and Dolls (Piccadilly), King Lear/The Seagull (RSC/world tour), Wolf Hall/Bring up the Bodies (RSC/London/NYC), A Damsel in Distress (Chichester), No’s Knife (Old Vic), A Winters Tale, Romeo & Juliet, The Entertainer (Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company/Garrick)
Opera includes: Billy Budd (Glyndebourne/BAM), Marriage of Figaro (Glyndebourne/HGO), Madam Butterfly (HGO), Don Giovanni (Met). Ballet includes: Casanova (Northern Ballet)
Christopher is a recipient of the Tony, Drama Desk, Olivier, Evening Standard, Critic’s Circle, Garland, Falstaff and Ovation awards for his work in both the UK and the USA.
Neil Austin - (Lighting Designer)
West End includes:
Company (Gielgud); The Lieutenant of Inishmore (Wyndham’s); Red (Wyndham’s); Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Palace); Ink, No Man’s Land (Duke of York’s); Labour of Love, Photograph 51, Shakespeare in Love andHenry V (Coward) The Goat, Great Britain,(Haymarket); Travesties, A Life in the Theatre (Apollo); Buried Child, The Hothouse and Dealer’s Choice (Trafalgar Studios); The Weir, Hamlet, Madame de Sade and Twelfth Night (Wyndham’s);The Sunshine Boys (Savoy); South Downs, The Browning Version, Death and the Maiden and The Children’s Hour(Comedy/Pinter); Piaf, The Prisoner of Second Avenue (Vaudeville); Frost/Nixon (Gielgud); King Lear, The Seagull (RSC: New London); Bend it Like Beckham (Phoenix); Betty Blue Eyes and Much Ado About Nothing (Novello).
Other Theatre includes: Translations; Albion; Three Days in the Country; Rules for Living; Dara; Liolà; Children of the Sun;The Cherry Orchard; Women Beware Women; London Assurance; The White Guard; Oedipus; Philistines; The Man of Mode; Thérèse Raquin (National Theatre); Albion, Ink, The Treatment, Medea (Almeida); Henry IV; Julius Caesar; The Night Alive; Spelling Bee; King Lear; Passion; The Wild Duck; After Miss Julie; Caligula (Donmar Warehouse); Birdland;The Faith Machine; Tusk Tusk (Royal Court); Travesties; Assassins; Dealer’s Choice (Menier Chocolate Factory); The Dazzle(Found 111); King Lear; The Seagull, King John, Much Ado abut Nothing, Romeo & Juliet, Julius Caesar, Two Gentlemen of Verona (RSC)
Broadway includes: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Travesties, Hughie; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Evita; Red; Hamlet; The Seafarer; Frost/Nixon.
He was the recipient of the 2017 Olivier Award and the 2018 Tony Award for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the 2010 Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for Red on Broadway, and the 2011 Olivier Award for The White Guard at the National Theatre.
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