Northampton’s Royal and Derngate and Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse are to co-produce the world première of Arthur Miller’s “play for the screen” The Hook.
The production, adapted for the stage by Ron Hutchinson, marks the centenary of the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright’s birth.
During the political tensions of 1950s America, The Hook was suppressed by the FBI for fear that it could cause unrest in New York's dockyards. Sixty years on, Brooklyn's epic waterfront will come alive on stage in the extraordinary story of Marty Ferrara, a longshoreman who challenges the mobsters and gangs of ‘50s New York and takes a stand against the corruption he witnesses from the authorities who control the docks.
The Hook is a “study in integrity and betrayal, charting one man’s struggle for meaningful change. It is a story for our own age of growing unemployment, zero-hour contracts, immigration, industrial change and social tensions”.
Royal and Derngate’s artistic director James Dacre directs. He said, “over several several years, our team have created a full transcript of Arthur Miller’s ‘play for the screen’ by collating copies of his typewritten versions of the script and accompanying handwritten notes, working with a number of Miller's collaborators and scholars on trying to make sense of it all.
“Drawing on all these sources, and using only Arthur Miller’s language, Ron Hutchinson has adapted a play envisioned for the screen into an epic stage production that will be performed by a large ensemble cast.”
The central role of Marty Ferrera is taken by Jamie Sives who played Henry V in The James Plays for the National Theatres of Scotland and Great Britain.
Susie Trayling, who played Elizabeth Proctor in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible at West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2014 and Constance in King John at the RSC in 2012, takes the role of Marty Ferrera’s wife Therese.
The cast also includes Tom Canton, Joseph Alessi, Séan Aydon, Tim Chipping, Sean Jackson, Sean Murray, Paul Rattray, Jem Wall and Ewart James Walters. The company will perform alongside a large ensemble chorus drawn from Northampton and Liverpool to play the dockside community of 1950s Brooklyn.
The production is composed by Isobel Waller-Bridge and designed by Patrick Connellan.
The Hook runs at Royal and Derngate from Friday 5 until Saturday 27 June before transferring to Liverpool Everyman.