Saskia Reeves and Danny Webb will star in the world premiere of Abi Morgan’s The Mistress Contract when it opens at the Royal Court in the new year.
The production, which has also announced a two week extension to its run, will now play from 30 January to 22 March in the venue’s Jerwood Theatre Downstairs.
Written by the BAFTA-winning writer behind The Iron Lady, The Mistress Contract tells the story of the unconventional relationship between 88-year-old She and 93-year-old He, who are bound by a remarkable document dictating that She is to provide sexual acts in return for a home and an income from He.
While Webb returns to the Royal Court following 2012’s The Witness, Reeves takes to the stage of the Sloane Square venue for the first time in almost a decade, after appearing there in 2005’s The Woman Before.
The duo, who will play the roles of the anonymous lead characters in the portrait of a real-life couple whose story has been recorded on reams of tape recordings over their 30 year relationship, have a string of theatre credits to their names.
Webb, whose appearances at the Royal Court also include Chicken Soup With Barley and this year’s off-site production of Circle Mirror Transformation, has appeared elsewhere in the RSC’s Troilus And Cressida, Blasted at the Lyric Hammersmith and 13 at the National Theatre, while Reeves has appeared in Hello And Goodbye at the Trafalgar Studios and Complicité’s A Disappearing Number at the Barbican.
Directed by the venue’s Artistic Director Vicky Featherstone, the production will open at the Royal Court’s Jerwood Theatre Downstairs following Lisa Dwan’s solo performance in Samuel Beckett’s play trilogy Not I/Footfalls/Rockaby, which today announced that it will transfer to the West End following its new year run at the Sloane Square venue.