Brian Dennehy will star in a revival of Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms on Broadway next season after the production premieres in January at Chicago's Goodman Theatre, according to Variety. Goodman artistic director Robert Falls, who has collaborated with Dennehy on a number of O'Neill plays, will direct the revival, the centerpiece of the Goodman's forthcoming festival spotlighting the master playwright's works. No Broadway theater or exact dates have been set.
Inspired by Greek tragedy, Desire Under the Elms was written in 1924 and has not been seen on Broadway since Karl Malden headlined a production in 1952. Dennehy plays patriarch Ephraim Cabot, who returns to the family farm with an alluring young wife, Abbie. She develops a passionate romance with Eben, one of Ephraim's three sons, with tragic consequences.
Dennehy recently appeared in Richard Nelson's Conversations in Tusculum at the Public Theater and co-starred last season in the Broadway revival of Inherit the Wind. He won Best Actor Tony Awards for Falls' productions of Long Day's Journey Into Night and Death of a Salesman. At the Goodman, Dennehy has starred in acclaimed productions of Hughie, A Touch of the Poet, The Iceman Cometh and Galileo, among many others.
The August: Osage County producing team of Jeffrey Richards, Steve Traxler and Jerry Frankel will mount Desire Under the Elms on Broadway.
