Long Wharf Theatre Photo
Gordon Edelstein.
Long Wharf Theatre‘s artistic director, Gordon Edelstein, will direct a Roundabout Theatre Company production of Athol Fugard’s The Road To Mecca. The production will represent the Broadway premiere of the play, according to a press release issued by Long Wharf.
Long Wharf Theatre has a long history of presenting Fugard’s works, beginning with The Blood Knot some four decades ago, Sizwe Bansi is Dead not long after that, and, more recently — and under Edelstein’s direction—Coming Home, Have You Seen Us?, and The Train Driver.
Edelstein, who has been with the organization for a decade, directed Roundabout Theatre Company’s debut production — Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming, 20 years ago.
The cast for Roundabout Theatre Company’s staging of Fugard’s The Road to Mecca includes Tony Award-winners Rosemary Harris and Jim Dale, as well as Carla Gugino, who’ll star in Long Wharf Theatre’s world premiere production of David Rintel’s Sophie’s Choice, which Edelstein will direct in spring 2012.
Long Wharf Theatre’s press release provided this description of Fugard’s The Road to Mecca: “Set in the region of South Africa known as the Karoo, The Road to Mecca tells the story of an elderly woman who has spent the years since her husband’s death transforming her home into an intricate and dazzling work of art. The reclusive Miss Helen (Rosemary Harris) has become depressed and appears increasingly unable to care for herself. Pastor Marius Byleveld, who embodies the village’s conservative values, is determined to get Miss Helen into an old-age home. Her friend Elsa (Carla Gugino), a young teacher from Cape Town who is deeply suspicious of the patriarchal traditions Byleveld represents, is just as determined that Miss Helen remain free.”
Roundabout Theatre Company’s production of The Road to Mecca is scheduled to open at the American Airlines Theatre in New York on January 17, 2012. The production is scheduled to run through March 2012, with previews beginning on Dec. 16 of this year.