The play, in which Rylance reprises the title role, is written by Stephen Brown with Mark Rylance and is directed by Tom Morris. In a unique theatrical event, he and the cast are joined on stage by 10 ballet dancers and the Salome string Quartet. The company are: Roseanna Anderson (Marja Seidel/ Baroness Maria-Teresa), Zoe Arshamian (Dance Ensemble), Joshua Ben-Tovim (Hospital Porter/ Death), Ewan Black (Franz Arneth), Chrissy Brooke (Lisa Elstein), Megumi Eda (Aiko Eda), Suzy Halstead (Violet-May Blackledge), Felix Hayes (Ferdinand von Hebra), Pauline McLynn (Anna Müller), Jude Owusu (Jakob Kolletschka), Oxana Panchenko (Dance Ensemble), Millie Thomas (Agnes Barta), Max Westwell (Hospital Porter/ Death), Amanda Wilkin (Maria Semmelweis), Alan Williams (Johann Klein), Daniel York Loh (Karl von Rokitansky), Patricia Zhou (Dance Ensemble), and Helen Belbin, Jason Hogan, Andrew McDonald, with the Salomé Quartet – Haim Choi as Suk Hee Apfelbaum (Music Director/ Violin 1), Coco Inman as Sarah Schmidt (Violin 2), Kasia Zimińska as Eszter Horowitz (Viola) and Shizuku Tatsuno as Oshizu Yukimura (Cello).
“We are the doctors of the modern age. We are marching into battle.”
Mark Rylance returns to the West End as one of medicine’s greatest pioneers, maverick Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis – the man whose research could save many millions of mothers’ lives.
But what good is a discovery that is ignored?
In Vienna, a city of artistic and scientific revolution, thousands of women are still dying in childbirth each and every year. Dr Semmelweis dedicates himself to overcoming the invisible killer but to do so he must convince his colleagues that they themselves are causing the deaths of their patients.
Damned by an establishment that questions his methods, his motives and even his sanity, Semmelweis is haunted by the women he has failed to save. Can he finally convince the greatest doctors of 19th century Europe to accept his argument – and what will it cost him to make an almost impossible case?
Following a “smash hit” (Mail on Sunday), sold-out run at Bristol Old Vic, this “compelling new drama” (The Telegraph) directed by Tom Morris, featuring live music by Adrian Sutton and original choreography by Antonia Franceschi of Balanchine’s New York City Ballet, comes to the Harold Pinter Theatre in the West End for a strictly limited run this summer.
