by Juan Mayorga
translated by David Johnston
Cast
Red Cross Representative Jeff Rawle
Boys Jack Binysh, Jake Briski, Leon Garner, Alexander Main, Abraham Pirry
Young Couple on Bench Vanessa Ackerman, Daniel Hart
Second Woman on Bench Claire Lichie
Girl Emma Pinto
Gershom Gottfried Richard Katz
Commandant Dominic Rowan
Director Ramin Gray
Designer Miriam Büther
Lighting Designer Johanna Town
Sound Designer Ian Dickinson
Assistant Director Simon Breden
Casting Amy Ball
Production Manager Sue Bird
Stage Managers Susannah Lawrence, Fay Mansfield
Costume Supervisors Iona Kenrick, Jackie Orton
Company Voice Work Patsy Rodenburg
The playwright and translator gratefully acknowledge the support of Jacques Le Ny and the Atelier Européen de Traduction.
Juan Mayorga (writer)
For the Royal Court: Voices from Spain season 1997 with Scorched Garden, 1998 International Residency developing Love Letters to Stalin, as part of the 2002 International season, The Good Neighbour.
Other theatre includes: Más ceniza, El sueño de Ginebra (Cuarta Pared, Madrid); El traductor de Blumemberg (Teatro Nacional Cervantes, Buenos Aires); Cartas de amor a Stalin (Teatro María Guerrero, Madrid); El Gordo y el Flaco (Teatro Adolfo Marsillach, San Sebastián de los Reyes); Animales Nocturnos (Sala Guindalera, Madrid); Últimas palabras de Copito de Nieve (Nuevo Teatro Alcalá, Madrid); Camino del cielo (Teatro María Guerrero, Madrid); Hamelin (Teatro de la Abadía, Madrid).
Vanessa Ackerman
Theatre includes: Two Gentlemen of Verona, Julius Caesar (RSC); Mythomania, Paradox (RSC Fringe TOP); Kvetch, Jew of Malta (Teatre della Contradizzione); The Ceremony (Soho). Television includes: The Bill, The Lost Prince.
Jack Binysh
Theatre includes: All Our Sons (Bloomsbury).
Simon Breden
As assistant director: Tejas Verdes (Gate).
As director: Slowburn (Etcetera); Yellow Rain (Embassy); Protect Me (Young Vic); The Bear, The Proposal (Landor); Detour (St. Mark’s Church); Yerma; Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me; In The Burning Darkness; The Real Inspector Hound (Burton Taylor Studio); Murder In The Cathedral (St. Peter’s Chapel).
Jake Briski
Jake has trained at The Harris Drama School. Way to Heaven is Jake’s theatrical debut.
Miriam Büther (designer)
Theatre includes: Platform (ICA); The Wonderful World of Dissocia (Lyceum, Edinburgh); Guantanamo (Tricycle/West End/NY); People Next Door (Traverse/Germany/Balkans/NY); The Dumb Waiter, Victoria Station and Other Pieces (Oxford Playhouse); Bintou (Arcola); Red Demon (Young Vic/Bunkamura Tokyo); Eskimo Sisters (Southwark); Lebensspiele (Three Mills Island).
Dance includes: Outsight, Tender Hooks (Fundaçâo C Gulbenkian, Lisbon); Toot, Possibly Six (Theatre Maisonneuve, Montreal); Track (Scottish Dance Theatre); Body of Poetry (Komische Oper, Berlin); 7DS (Sadler’s Wells).
Installations: Lazy Boys and Busy Bodies (KX Gallery, Kampnagel Hamburg); Gedankengebäude in der Kunst (Kunsthaus, Hamburg); Architekturkleider (National Gallery, Sopot Poland).
Awards include: Linbury Prize for Stage Design 1999, Bursary of Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft 1996.
Ian Dickinson (sound designer)
For the Royal Court: The Woman Before, Stoning Mary (& Drum Theatre, Plymouth), Breathing Corpses, Wild East, Shining City (& Gate, Dublin), Lucky Dog, Blest Be the Tie (with Talawa TC), Ladybird, Notes on Falling Leaves, Loyal Women, The Sugar Syndrome, Blood, Playing the Victim (with Told By an Idiot), Fallout, Flesh Wound, Hitchcock Blonde (& Lyric), Black Milk, Crazyblackmuthafuckin’self, Caryl Churchill Shorts, Push Up, Fucking Games, Herons.
Other theatre includes: Port, As You Like It, Poor Superman, Martin Yesterday, Fast Food, Coyote Ugly (Royal Exchange, Manchester); Night of the Soul (RSC/Barbican); Eyes of the Kappa (Gate); Crime & Punishment in Dalston (Arcola); Search & Destroy (New End); The Whore’s Dream (RSC/Edinburgh); Ian is Head of Sound at the Royal Court.
Leon Garner
Way To Heaven is Leon Garner’s theatrical debut.
Television includes: Watchdog.
Film includes: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Ramin Gray (director)
For the Royal Court: Bear Hug, The Weather, Ladybird, Advice to Iraqi Women, Terrorism, Night Owls, Just a Bloke, Push Up, How I Ate a Dog. Other theatre includes: The American Pilot (RSC); The Child, The Invisible Woman (Gate); Cat and Mouse (Sheep) (Théâtre National de l’Odéon, Paris/Gate); Autumn and Winter (Man in the Moon); A Message for the Broken-Hearted (Liverpool Playhouse/BAC); At Fifty She Discovered the Sea, Harry’s Bag, Pig’s Ear, A View from the Bridge, Spring Awakening (Liverpool Playhouse); The Malcontent (Latchmere).
Ramin is an Associate Director of the Royal Court.
Daniel Hart
Theatre includes: The Mandate, Peter Pan (RNT); Allport’s Revenge, The Destiny of Me (Finborough); Amadeus (Theatre Royal, York); Wolfgame (Union Theatre); The Browning Version (Derby); The Lie (King’s Head); Madame Melville (Vaudeville); The Station (Soho); Macbeth (Queen’s).
Television includes: Cambridge Spies, Suffocation, Midsomer Murders, Vanity Fair.
Awards include: BBC Carleton-Hobbs Award.
David Johnston (translator)
Translations include: Lope de Vega’s The Dog in the Manger (RSC/Austin Shakespeare Festival, Texas); Calderón’s The Painter of Dishonour (RSC); Lope de Vega’s Madness in Valencia (Gate/RSC); The Gentleman from Olmedo (Gate/Watermill Theatre, Newbury); The Great Pretenders (Gate); Gil Vicente’s The Boat Plays, Valle-Inclán’s The Barbarous Comedies, Bohemian Lights (Gate); Divine Words (BBC Radio 3); Lorca’s Blood Wedding (Communicado, Bruiser); The Public (BBC); Vargas Llosa’s The Madman of the Balconies (Gate); La Chunga: The Woman of Our Dreams (Lyric, Belfast).
Original pieces include: El Quijote (Gate), Hambone’s Day, The Shadow of the Wedding and The Priest (BBC), Dark Root, Bitter Flower (Strathclyde Theatre Group), The Poet in the City (Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast).
Richard Katz
For the Royal Court: Genoa 01 (with Theatre de Complicite).
Other theatre includes: Faustus (Northampton); Measure for Measure, Life Game (Improbable), Wind in the Willows, The Skriker (RNT); Strange Poetry, The Noise of Time, Mnemonic (Theatre de Complicite); The Hanging Man, Angel Carter’s Cinderella (Improbable/Lyric); The Golden Ass, A Midsummers Night’s Dream (Globe); Aladdin (Told By An Idiot); Arabian Nights (Young Vic); Don’t Laugh It’s My Life (Told By An Idiot/BAC); King Ubu (Gate); In Savoy (National Studio); Much Ado About Nothing (Thelma Holt tour/West End); The Game Rule (Tandem); All Gods Chillun Got Wings (West Yorkshire Playhouse); The Honest Whore (Boulevard).
Film and television includes: Absolute Power, Rome, Silent But Deadly, Origins of Evil, Black Books, Start. Afterdeath, People Like Us, Nicholas Nickleby, Enigma, The Last Sin, Finding Freud, London’s Burning, The Bill.
Radio includes: The Archers, Westway, Brought to Book, Street and Lane, The Lion of Chechnya, Comeback, A Mysterious Affair at Stiles, A Certain Justice, Mnemonic, The Newbury Arms (Co writer and performer).
Claire Lichie
Theatre includes: All the Right People Come Here (Bush); Miss Private View, 3some in Soho (Soho); Cruising (Tristan Bates); Lovers (Gielgud); The Witch of Edmunton, Yerma (Southwark); Love’s Labour’s Lost (Etcetera); The Snow Queen (national tour); Blue Funk (Old Red Lion). Television includes: Agony.
Film includes: Inbetweeners.
Alexander Main
Alexander has trained at The Harris Drama School. Film includes: Heidi.
Way to Heaven is Alexander’s theatrical debut.
Emma Pinto
Way To Heaven is Emma’s theatrical debut.
Abraham Pirry
Abraham has trained at The Harris Drama School.
Film includes: The Man Who Cried, Just Visiting.
Adverts include: Cancer Research, British Airways.
Way to Heaven is Abraham’s theatrical debut.
Jeff Rawle
For Royal Court: The Arbor, The Irish Soldier, Bent. Other theatre includes: Noises Off (RNT); Neville’s Island, Queerfolk (Nottingham Playhouse); Releevo, Living With Your Enemies (Soho Poly); Reluctant Heroes, Elephant Man (Churchill, Bromley); Butley (Fortune); The Caretaker (Thorndike); Equus (Aldwych); Five Finger Exercise (Upstream). Television includes: Spooks, A Touch of Frost, Holby City, Ultimate Force, Doc Martin, William and Mary, The Royal, The Deputy, Heartbeat, Death in Holy Orders, Take a Girl Like You, I Saw You, Fish, Microsoap, Neville’s Island, Faith in the Future, Drop the Dead Donkey, Sharma, Blood and Peaches, Lords of Misrule, Look at the State We’re in Chief, The Life and Times of Henry Pratt, Medics, Casualty, Minder, Rides, Moon and Sun, Eastenders, A Perfect Hero, The Gift, Vote for Them, South of the Border, Run for the Lifeboat, Boon, Fortunes of War, Call Me Mister, Remmington Steel, Country and Irish, Dr Who, Singles Weekend, Bergerac, Claire, Juliet Bravo, Singles, Wilde Alliance, Love on the Dole, Death of a Young Man, The Water Maiden, Billy Liar.
Film includes: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Black Ball, Inspector Calls II, Baal, A Hitch in Time, Correction Please, Rating Notman, Duchamp, Crystal Gazing, Awayday, Laughterhouse, Doctors and the Devils.
Dominic Rowan
For the Royal Court: Forty Winks.
Theatre includes: Dream Play, Iphigenia at Aulis, Mourning Becomes Electra, Three Sisters, The Talking Cure, Private Lives (RNT); Lobby Hero (Donmar/New Ambassadors); Merchant of Venice, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Talk Of The City (RSC); Sexual Perversity in Chicago (Crucible, Sheffield); Look Back In Anger, The Rivals, Charlie’s Aunt (Royal Exchange, Manchester); Playhouse Creatures (Old Vic); Talk of the City (Young Vic); A Collier’s Friday Night (Hampstead).
Television includes: North Square, A Rather English Marriage, Between the Lines, Devil’s Advocate, No Bananas, Emma, Swallow, Rescue Me, Lost World, Hearts and Bones, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Silent Witness (VI), Holby City, Celeb, Doc Martin.
Film includes: David, Tulse Lupers’ Suitcases, Pressure Points.
Radio includes: Talk of the City, Mill on the Floss.
Johanna Town (lighting designer)
For the Royal Court: Talking to Terrorists (with Out of Joint); My Name is Rachel Corrie, A Girl in a Car with a Man, Under the Whaleback, Plasticine, Mr Kolpert, The Kitchen, Shopping & Fucking (with Out of Joint/West End); The Steward of Christendom (with Out of Joint/Broadway).