Lindsay Duncan, Hilton McRae and Emily Bruni star in new UK tour of Strindberg’s The Dance of Death opening at Bath’s Ustinov Studio

Lindsay Duncan stars alongside Hilton McRae and Emily Bruni in a thrilling new version of August Strindberg’s The Dance of Death, which opens at Bath’s Ustinov Studio appearing from Thursday 19th May to Saturday 4th June. The production, adapted by Academy Award-winning playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz and directed by Arcola Theatre’s co-founder and Artistic Director Mehmet Ergen, will also tour to Oxford Playhouse, Cambridge Arts Theatre, Northampton’s Royal & Derngate and London’s Arcola Theatre. 

Olivier and Tony Award winner Lindsay Duncan stars as Alice. One of our best-loved actresses, Lindsay is well-known for her many stage roles and BAFTA-nominated performances on screen in Alan Bleasdale’s G.B.H. and Stephen Poliakoff’s Shooting the Past. Olivier Award nominee Hilton McRae stars as Edgar. His stage and screen credits range from leading Shakespearean roles at the Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre to iconic films including The French Lieutenant’s Woman and Mansfield Park. The role of Katrin is played by Emily Bruni, whose television credits include Peep Show and Intergalactic. Her stage work includes leading roles at Trafalgar Studios and Shakespeare’s Globe.

As their 30th wedding anniversary approaches, Alice and Edgar are locked in a bitter struggle. They’ve driven away their children and their friends. Their relationship is sustained by taunts and recriminations. When a newcomer breaks into the midst of the fray, their insular lives threaten to spin out of control. Laced with biting humour, The Dance of Death is August Strindberg’s landmark drama about a marriage pushed to its limits.

Johan August Strindberg (1849 – 1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. His principal works for the stage include Miss Julie, Creditors, The Father, A Dream Play, The Ghost Sonata and The Dance of Death.

Lindsay Duncan has starred in numerous productions for the RSC, including Les Liaisons Dangereuses, for which she won an Olivier Award for Best Actress. She has also performed frequently at the National Theatre in productions ranging from Hansard to The Homecoming and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. She starred in the Broadway production of A Delicate Balance; That Face and Top Girls for the Royal Court; Celebration/The Room at the Almeida Theatre and in the West End productions of Hay Fever, The Cryptogram, Mouth to Mouth and Private Lives, for which she won an Olivier Award and a Tony Award for Best Actress on Broadway. Her extensive television credits include The Split, His Dark Materials, G.B.H., Shooting the Past, Churchill’s Secret, Sherlock, A Discovery of Witches, Close to the Enemy, Come Fly with Me, Rome, Merlin, The Sinking of the Laconia, Lost in Austen, Just William and Oliver Twist. Her film credits include Alice in Wonderland, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Birdman, About Time, Gifted, Blackbird, Under the Tuscan Sun, Mansfield Park, Afterlife, Starter For 10, An Ideal Husband and City Hall.  

Hilton McRae’s stage credits include 1984 on UK tour; Uncle Vanya at the Almeida Theatre; Timon of Athens and Caroline, or Change at the National Theatre; As You Like It, The Alchemist and The Danton Affair at the RSC; and the West End productions of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, My One and Only, Mamma Mia!, Les Miserables, Miss Saigon and Piaf. He has previously performed at the Theatre Royal Bath in Hamlet in 1983 and in End of the Rainbow in 2011, for which he received an Olivier Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor at Trafalgar Studios. His many television credits include Chernobyl, Injustice, Doctors, Zen, Red Riding Trilogy – 1983, Frances Tuesday, Murder City, Baby Father, Deacon Brodie, King of Hearts, Roll Over Beethoven, Poppyland and Forever Young. His film credits include The French Lieutenant’s Woman, Mansfield Park, Darkest Hour, Denial, The Sense of an Ending, Macbeth, Far from the Madding Crowd, Secret Rapture and Greystoke.

Emily Bruni returns to the Ustinov Studio after previously starring in The Model Apartment in 2018. Her stage credits also include Psychodrama for Never For Ever; King Lear at Shakespeare’s Globe; Before You Were Born and Yes Prime Minister at Trafalgar Studios; The Rubenstein Kiss at Hampstead Theatre; Broken Glass at the Tricycle Theatre; Ring Round the Moon at the Playhouse Theatre; Someone Else’s Shoes at Soho Theatre and After Mrs Rochester for Shared Experience. Her television credits include the role of Gail Huggins in Peep Show, as well as Catherine the Great, Personal Affairs, Passer By, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Believe Nothing, Metropolis and Intergalactic. Her film credits include Remember Me?, Tamara Drewe, Being Considered and Intimate Affairs. 

Rebecca Lenkiewicz, who has adapted The Dance of Death, has previously worked with the Arcola Theatre on The Painter in 2011 and An Enemy of the People in 2008. For stage, her credits include Her Naked Skin at the National Theatre, The Turn of the Screw at the Almeida Theatre and The Invisible at the Bush Theatre. For BBC Radio 4, her credits include An Enemy of the People, An Amateur Marriage, The Wide Sargasso Sea, Ladder of Years and Dracula. For film, her credits include Hot Milk (writing and directing), Ida (Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film 2015), Colette and Disobedience. 

Director Mehmet Ergen is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Arcola Theatre, where his many directing credits include The Painter, The Cradle Will Rock, Silver Birch House, Macbeth, An Enemy of the People, Release the Beat, The Plebeians Rehearse the Uprising, I Can Get It For You Wholesale, Jitterbug, Chasing the Moment and Seven Deadly Sins. Mehmet also directs extensively abroad in Israel, Ireland, Canada and Turkey. He is a co-founder of Southwark Playhouse and an Associate Producer at the Battersea Arts Centre. He has won a variety of awards including: the Time Out Award for Outstanding Achievement, the Peter Brook Empty Space Award, a Time Out Award for Best Fringe Production, the Angela Carter Award and the Equity Award for Best Studio Theatre.

The Dance of Death appears at the Ustinov Studio at the Theatre Royal Bath from Thursday 19th May to Saturday 4th June. Tickets are on sale at the Theatre Royal Bath Box Office on 01225 448844 and online at www.theatreroyal.org.uk/ustinov.