The Gate Theatre has announced the Irish Premiere of Thomas Bernhard’s classic play, THE PRESIDENT, starring Olwen Fouéré and Hugo Weaving, directed by Tom Creed.
The first ever co-production between the Gate Theatre and Sydney Theatre Company, THE PRESIDENT will open at the Gate Theatre on Thursday 8th February 2024, with previews from Friday 2nd February, before transferring to Sydney for a run from Saturday 13th April.
In a small, unnamed country, there has been an assassination. However, the gunmen missed their intended targets, the President and the First Lady, killing instead a loyal bodyguard and the First Lady’s beloved dog.
As a revolution brews right outside their front door, the First Lady sits with a mixture of hysterics, rage and obsession. The President holds forth in a verbal tsunami of self- aggrandisement and vainglory, while his mistress, an actress, gambles his cash away in the blackjack room next door.
With its depictions of the abuses of power, the disdain and paranoia of privilege, and prophecies of the age of surveillance, corruption and terrorism, THE PRESIDENT is as striking and resonant when it was first performed in 1975.
For this rare and remarkable international collaboration, the cast and creative team will be drawn equally from the finest Irish and Australian theatre-making talents to create a singular, global theatrical event.
Acclaimed actors Olwen Fouéré and Hugo Weaving play the First Lady and the President in this unforgettable Irish Premiere of Thomas Bernhard’s genius play, translated by Gitta Honegger.
