JAMES CROMWELL TO PLAY A. E.
HOUSMAN IN A.C.T.'S AMERICAN PREMIERE OF TOM STOPPARD'S INVENTION
OF LOVE
Oscar-Nominated Film and
Theater Veteran Makes Bay Area Stage Debut at the Geary Theater,
January 6 through February 13, 2000
American Conservatory Theater
Artistic Director Carey Perloff today announced that acclaimed
theater and film actor James Cromwell would lead the cast of
A.C.T.'s American premiere of Tom Stoppard's most recent play, The
Invention of Love. Directed by Perloff, the production run through Sunday, February 13.
A.C.T.'s
production of The Invention of Love is made possible in
part by leading corporate sponsor United Airlines and corporate
sponsor San Francisco Bay Guardian.
Nominated for an
Academy Award for his memorable performance as Farmer Hoggett in
the hit film Babe, Cromwell will soon be seen on screen
in the San Francisco-set comedy The Bachelor, starring
Chris O'Donnell; opposite Tom Hanks in Frank Darabont's The
Green Mile; and with Ethan Hawke and Max von Sydow in the
film adaptation of the best-seller Snow Falling on Cedars.
He is currently filming Space Cowboys with Clint Eastwood
and Tommy Lee Jones. He recently completed HBO's RKO 281,
about the making of Citizen Kane, in which he plays
William Randolph Hearst. Recent memorable screen roles also
include the corrupt Police Captain Dudley Smith in L.A.
Confidential and the General in The General's Daughter.
Cromwell's
distinguished stage career includes roles in Hamlet, The
Iceman Cometh, The Devil's Disciple, All's Well
That Ends Well, Beckett, and Othello at
numerous regional theaters, including South Coast Repertory,
Goodman Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, American Shakespeare
Festival, Center Stage, Long Wharf Theatre, and Old Globe
Theatre.
The Invention of
Love portrays the life of the English classicist and poet A.
E. Housman, who lived his entire adult life in unrequited love
for his Oxford classmate and school track star, Moses Jackson.
While exploring the conflict between passions of the mind and
desires of the heart, Stoppard crosscuts between the rarefied
world of Oxford and Cambridge, Victorian London's perilous
corridors of political power, the French seashore where Oscar
Wilde makes a surprising appearance, and the underworld of Greek
myth, where the oarsman Charon ferries the dead over the river
Styx. Private loves clash with public mores and the promise of
youth with the regret of old age in a work of great yearning and
boundless humanity. London's Evening Standard named The
Invention of Love the best play of 1997, calling it
"the most emotionally powerful and enthralling play of
Stoppard's career."
Joining Cromwell, who
plays the Victorian poet at the end of his life, is Jason Butler
Harner as the young-adult Housman. Harner made an acclaimed
debut at A.C.T. last season as Edmund in Eugene O'Neill's Long
Day's Journey into Night. He is currently in Manhattan
Theatre Club's American premiere of Shelagh Stephenson's An
Experiment with an Air Pump. The Invention of Love
cast also includes A.C.T. favorites Marco Barricelli as Oscar
Wilde, Steven Anthony Jones as Charon, and Ken Ruta in two
roles: the essayist and critic John Ruskin and the politician
Labouchère, author of the amendment to the 1885 Criminal Law
Bill that provided against "any act of gross
indecency" between male persons, and whose most famous
victim was Oscar Wilde. Also in the cast are Charles Dean, Brian
Keith Russell, Michael Santo, Molly Stickney, and W. Francis
Walters. Further casting information will be available shortly. The
Invention of Love marks A.C.T.'s second consecutive American
premiere of a Stoppard work after last season's sold-out run of Indian
Ink, also directed by Perloff. As with Ink, Stoppard
will be in residence at A.C.T. during rehearsals of The
Invention of Love to ready the play for its U. S. premiere.
Tickets for The
Invention of Love are available through the Geary Theater
Box Office, located at 405 Geary Street, (415) 749-2228, online,
and at all BASS Ticket outlets. Groups of 15 or more people are
eligible for discounts; please call Linda Graham at (415)
346-7805.
