RIALTO CHATTER: Dennehy Headed Back to Broadway in O'Neill Double Bill at Golden?

Michael Riedel is reporting in today's New York Post that Brian Dennehy might be headed back to Broadway in a double bill of Eugene O'Neill's Hughie and Krapp's Last Tape, which is set to run at the Goodman's Albert Theatre in Chicago from January 16 - February 21, 2010.  

Press has raved about Dennehy's portrayal of contrasting roles in the double-bill of Hughie by Eugene O'Neill and Krapp's Last Tape by Samuel Beckett is "sheer theatrical dynamite" (Toronto Star). First, Goodman Artistic Director Robert Falls directs Hughie, featuring Dennehy as the wise-cracking, down-on-his-luck gambler Erie Smith, and Joe Grifasi as night clerk Charlie Hughes. Then, in "a transformation of extraordinary stature" (Associated Press), Dennehy becomes the title character in Beckett's classic one-man show, Krapp's Last Tape, helmed by award-winning Canadian director Jennifer Tarver.

Hughie/Krapp's Last Tape runs January 16 - February 21, 2010 at the Goodman's Albert Theatre. Tickets are $25 - $83 and can be purchased online at www.GoodmanTheatre.org, at the box office (170 North Dearborn) or by phone at 312.443.3800.

This production marks Dennehy and Falls' fourth production of Hughie, an intense, intimate character study composed late in the playwright's career, and their sixth O'Neill collaboration in two decades.

"O'Neill's plays are about ideas, written for people who like to think. As an actor, you can never let go of his plays; you're never finished," said Dennehy, an accomplished artist of stage and screen. "This production is very important to me; when an actor's own life dovetails with the themes of a play, it becomes personal. But what's most important is that at the end of the experience, the audience realizes the play is not about me, the playwright, or the director; it's about them."

In Hughie, high-rolling gambler Erie (Brian Dennehy) and Hughie, the credulous night clerk at a single-occupancy hotel, were confidants. Hughie admired Erie for his bold lifestyle and Erie considered Hughie his good luck charm. When Hughie dies unexpectedly, Erie's luck changes for the worse and he finds himself in dire straits. Then Erie meets the new night clerk (Joe Grifasi), who reminds him enough of Hughie that he takes the gamble that his luck is about to change. Krapp's Last Tape is Samuel Beckett's classic one-act, one-man show. Every year on his birthday, Krapp (Brian Dennehy) records the important&#8212and the banal&#8212moments of the last year. As he prepares to record a new tape on his 69th birthday, he begins to listen to his archives. This immersion in his own history leads Krapp to question, with growing regret, whether his present lives up to his past.

In 1985, Dennehy appeared in Cocoon and Silverado, two films that affirmed his status as one of Hollywood's leading character actors. That same year (the 1985/1986 theater season) Dennehy also made his Chicago stage debut in the role of a menacing interrogator in Ron Hutchinson's Rat in the Skull&#8212a gritty psychological thriller set in a London police station during the height of "the troubles" between England and Northern Ireland&#8212at Wisdom Bridge Theatre, where Falls was artistic director. When Falls became artistic director of Goodman Theatre, he signaled a muscular new direction for the Goodman by opening the 1986/1987 season with a production of Bertolt Brecht's The Life of Galileo (retitled Galileo). To play the role of Brecht's titular character, Falls knew that he needed an exceptional actor whose talent and stage presence would match the immense physical, emotional and intellectual demands of the role. On September 26, 1986, Dennehy made his Goodman debut as Italian natural philosopher Galileo Galilei&#8212and launched one of the great and enduring actor/director partnerships in the American theater.

Falls and Dennehy teamed up again in 1990 to tackle one of Eugene O'Neill's masterworks, The Iceman Cometh. Dennehy's towering performance as Theodore "Hickey" Hickman, the quintessential purveyor and slayer of pipe dreams, earned rave reviews and the show was named by Time magazine as one the American theater season's "ten best." The revival production at The Abbey Theatre was hailed as the highpoint of the 33rd annual Dublin Theatre Festival. Over the next two decades Dennehy returned to Chicago to collaborate with Falls on Arthur Miller's Death of Salesman (1998) and O'Neill's A Touch of the Poet (1996); Long Day's Journey into Night (2002), Hughie (2004) and Desire Under the Elms (2009). Subsequent Broadway productions of Death of a Salesman and Long Day's Journey into Night were honored with multiple Tony Awards, and Dennehy also received the Laurence Olivier Award for his performance in the London revival of Death of a Salesman.

Brian Dennehy (Erie/Krapp)'s credits at other theaters include Richard Nelson's Conversations in Tusculum at the Public Theater, Trumbo at Westside Theatre, The Cherry Orchard at Brooklyn Academy Of Music and Says I, Says He at Phoenix Theatre, all off-Broadway. Regional credits include All's Well That Ends Well, Hughie and Krapp's Last Tape at Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario; The Exonerated (New York tour/Chicago/Boston/Washington, D.C.) and Says I, Says He at Mark Taper Forum; and Rat in the Skull at Wisdom Bridge Theatre. He appeared in Death of a Salesman (Olivier Best Actor Statue, 2005) in London's West End. Feature films include The Next Three Days, Alleged, Every Day, Miss January, Righteous Kill, War Eagle, Welcome to Paradise, Ratatouille, The Ultimate Gift, Everyone's Hero, 10th & Wolf, Assault on Precinct 13, Stolen Summer, Summer Catch, The Warden, Virtuoso, Tommy Boy, Baz Luhrman's Romeo & Juliet, Presumed Innocent, F/X 2, Seven Minutes, Gladiator, Best Seller, The Last of the Finest, The Belly of an Architect (Best Actor Chicago Film Festival), F/X, Cocoon, Silverado, Twice in a Lifetime, Gorky Park, Legal Eagles, Deep River, 10, Butch and Sundance: The Early Years, Little Miss Marker, Finders, Keepers, Foul Play, F.I.S.T. and Semi-Tough. Television film credits include Bunker Hill (TNT pilot), Rules of Engagement (CBS), Our Fathers (Showtime, Emmy Award nomination Best Supporting Actor), The Exonerated (Court TV), Behind the Camera: Three's Company (NBC), The Crooked E (ABC), A Season on the Brink (ESPN), Three Blind Mice (CBS), Death of a Salesman (Showtime, Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award and an Emmy Award nomination as Best Actor), Thanks to a Grateful Nation (Showtime), The Warden (Showtime), Sirens (Showtime), The Doris Duke Story (CBS), Like Father Like Son (CBS), Jack Reed: Death and Vengeance (NBC), Undue Influence (CBS), A Season in Purgatory (NBC), Dead Man's Walk (ABC), Jack Reed: A Killer Amongst Us (NBC), Burden of Proof (ABC, Emmy Award nomination for Best Actor), In Broad Daylight (CBS), Shadow of a Doubt (NBC), Jack Reed: A Search For Justice (NBC), The Terrorist (ABC), Jack Reed: An Honest Cop (NBC), To Catch a Killer (The John Wayne Gacy Story) (Tribune, Emmy Award nomination for Best Actor), Murder in the Heartland (ABC, Emmy Award nomination for Best Actor), Nostromo (BBC), Foreign Affairs (TNT, Cable Ace Award Best Actor), Teamster Boss: The Jackie Presser Story (HBO), The Last Place on Earth (BBC), A Killing in a Small Town (CBS, Emmy Award nomination for Best Actor), Day One (ABC), Rising Son (TNT), Perfect Witness (HBO, Cable Ace Award nomination Best Actor), Prophet of Evil (CBS), A Rumor of War (ABC), Shattered Vows (NBC), Final Appeal (NBC), Acceptable Risks (CBS) and Jericho Mile (ABC).

Robert Falls (Director, Hughie) has been the artistic director of Goodman Theatre since 1986. From 1977 to 1985, he was the artistic director of Wisdom Bridge Theatre. Most recently, he revived his critically acclaimed 2006 Goodman production of King Lear for Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, he directed Desire Under the Elms at the Goodman and on Broadway and curated A Global Exploration: Eugene O'Neill in the 21st Century at the Goodman. In Spring 2010, he will direct the world premiere of Rebecca Gilman's Goodman commission, A True History of the Johnstown Flood, in the Albert Theatre. Falls also directed the Broadway revival of American Buffalo, Hughie for Long Wharf Theatre and Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Shining City for the Goodman and Huntington Theatre Company, the Tony Award-nominated Broadway revival of Eric Bogosian's Talk Radio, the world premiere of Richard Nelson's Frank's Home for the Goodman and Playwrights Horizons, the Tony Award-nominated American premiere of Shining City on Broadway, A Life in the Theatre for the Goodman and the London revival of Death of a Salesman. His production of Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida for Walt Disney Theatricals ran on Broadway for four years, and toured nationally and abroad. Two of his most highly acclaimed Broadway productions, Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night (first staged at the Goodman) were honored with seven Tony Awards and three Drama Desk Awards. Previous Goodman credits include the world premieres of Arthur Miller's Finishing the Picture, Rebecca Gilman's Blue Surge and Dollhouse, Eric Bogosian's Griller, Louis Rosen and Thom Bishop's Book of the Night, Steve Tesich's The Speed of Darkness and On the Open Road and John Logan's Riverview: A Melodrama with Music; the American premiere of Alan Ayckbourn's House and Garden; the Midwest premieres of Kenneth Lonergan's Lobby Hero and Edward Albee's The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?; as well as Galileo, The Iceman Cometh, A Touch of the Poet, Three Sisters, The Night of the Iguana, Landscape of the Body, The Misanthrope, Pal Joey and The Tempest. Elsewhere, Falls has directed Blue Surge at Joseph Papp Public Theater, Horton Foote's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Young Man from Atlanta on Broadway (Tony Award-nominated transfer from the Goodman), the world premiere of Eric Bogosian's subUrbia at Lincoln Center Theater (Obie Award for Best Director), The Rose Tattoo for Circle in the Square (Tony Award-nominated), The Iceman Cometh at The Abbey Theatre in Dublin, On the Open Road at Joseph Papp Public Theater, The Night of the Iguana at Roundabout Theatre and The Food Chain at Westside Theatre, as well as productions for Guthrie Theater, Remains Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Metropolitan Opera and Grande Théatre de Genéve.

Jennifer Tarver (Director, Krapp's Last Tape) has been directing theater and opera for 15 years. She recently made her Stratford Shakespeare Festival debut directing Brian Dennehy in Krapp's Last Tape to resounding critical acclaim. Originally from New York, she is based in Toronto and works internationally. Her Canadian honors include best director 2007 from Now Magazine, the 2006 Pauline McGibbon Award in Directing and the 2002 John Hirsch Directors Award. Her company's 2006 work That Time&#8212Five Beckett Shorts garnered eight Dora Award nominations and four wins, including best director and best production. In 2007, Tarver directed the Canadian premieres of Sarah Kane's Crave at Nightwood Theatre and Will Eno's Thom Pain (based on nothing) at Tarragon Theatre. A passion for classic texts as well as cutting-edge contemporary work defines her career. Tarver creates and directs her own work through her Production Company Theatre Extasis (currently in development is her adaptation of Calderón's Life is a Dream). She is also the Associate Director at The Theatre Centre in Toronto leading their new work development program. Other directing credits include: Zastrozzi at Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Canada; Ines, a contemporary Fado opera at Queen of Puddings Music Theatre; Bashir Lazhar and The Fall at Tarragon Theatre, Toronto; Pinter's The Dwarfs and Will Eno's The Flu Season at Ryerson University; her own works Not Faust and History Play at Theatre Extasis; and She's Gone Away, a solo dance theater piece at The Theatre Centre/Hum. Other opera credits include The Rape of Lucretia at University of Toronto and L'Enfant e les Sortilèges, The Magic Flute, The Turn of the Screw and A Midsummer Night's Dream at Royal Conservatory of Music.

The Design Team for Hughie/Krapp's Last Tape includes EuGene Lee (Sets), Patrick Clark (Costumes), Robert Thomson (Lights) and Richard Woodbury (Sound). Joseph Drummond is the Production Stage Manager, and T. Paul Lynch is the Stage Manager.

Tickets to Hughie/Krapp's Last Tape ($25 &#8211 $83) are available for purchase at GoodmanTheatre.org, by calling 312.443.3800 or visiting the box office (170 North Dearborn). Mezztix are half-price mezzanine tickets available at 12 noon at the box office, and at 10am online (promo code MEZZTIX) day of performance; Mezztix are not available by telephone. 10Tix are $10 mezzanine tickets for students available at 12 noon at the box office, and at 10am online on the day of performance; 10Tix are not available by telephone. Valid student I.D. must be presented when picking up the tickets. Limit four per student with I.D. All tickets are subject to availability and handling fees apply. Discounted Group Tickets for 10 persons or more are available at 312.443.3820.

Photo credit: Walter McBride