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The Invisible

by Rebecca Lenkiewicz
The Invisible

In 2008 Rebecca Lenkiewicz became the first living female playwright to have an original play staged on the Olivier stage at the National Theatre (Her Naked Skin). Her quietly powerful and all-seeing new play, written in response to real-life cuts to legal aid, weaves together the stories of ordinary people fighting for their right to justice.

On her one night off this week, lawyer Gail is on a date with a man called Ken. It isn’t going well. All he really wants is some sympathy. All she wants is a bottle of rosé, a little fun, and to forget it all.

But Gail can’t switch off. Not really. Because in a bedroom in Southall a woman is being abused and there’s no one to help her. Up and down the country people are being forced to represent themselves in court. Tomorrow morning an old man will wake up to a different world. Changed. Hated. Invisible.

This production is kindly sponsored by The Law Society.

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'Strong and impassioned'
The Guardian
'Warmly insightful'
The Independent
'A generous-hearted play'
Sunday Times
'Kaleidoscopic' and 'exceptionally timely'
Financial Times
'Absorbing'
The Times
'Its message needs to be shouted, to be roared.'
The Stage
'Provocative, edgy and dark'
TheatreCat

Photo & video

Sound Design and Original Music
Ed Clarke

Ed Clarke has previously worked at the Bush Theatre on The Royale, The Invisible, Perseverance Drive and Fear.

His other theatre credits include: All We Ever Wanted Was Everything (Middle Child Theatre); A Super Happy Story (About Feeling Super Sad); (Silent Uproar), A Christmas Carol and A Short History Of Tractors In Ukrainian (Hull Truck Theatre); Showboat (New London Theatre); The Infidel (Theatre Royal Stratford East); Orpheus (Little Bulb Theatre at BAC and worldwide); Baddies (Unicorn Theatre); The Realness, Politrix, Phoenix, KnifeEdge and Babylon (The Big House); Beauty and the Beast (Young Vic and worldwide); Danny Boyle’s Frankenstein (Olivier, National Theatre – Olivier Award nomination 2012); Backbeat (Duke of York’s Theatre); The Mysteries and The Good Hope (National Theatre); The Railway Children (Waterloo International Station and Roundhouse Theatre Toronto); Fatal Attraction (Theatre Royal Haymarket); His Teeth (Only Connect Theatre); Baby Doll (Albery Theatre); Alex (Arts Theatre, UK and international tour); Old Times, A Doll’s House (Donmar Warehouse).

 

Director
Michael Oakley

Michael Oakley’s most recent credit is directing Caroline Quentin in The Life and Times of Fanny Hill at Bristol Old Vic Theatre. In 2012 he was Co-Artistic Director of Theatre on the Fly – a pop-up venue at Chichester Festival Theatre – where his productions included the acclaimed Playhouse Creatures. Prior to this, he was Trainee Director in Residence at Chichester Festival Theatre, and a recipient of the prestigious JMK Award for young directors.

Writer
Rebecca Lenkiewicz

Rebecca Lenkiewicz is an award-winning writer who, in 2008, was the first living female playwright to have her work produced on the Olivier Stage at the National Theatre, London. Rebecca is currently under commission to Out of Joint Theatre Company, Manhattan Theatre Club, New York, and the National Theatre. Rebecca’s screenplay IDA, co-written with Pawel Pawlikowksi, won Best Foreign Language Film awards at the 2015 Oscars, BAFTAs and Spirit Awards.

 

Lighting
Richard Howell

Richard Howell’s credits include: Jekyll and Hyde (Old Vic, London); The Homecoming, East is East (Trafalgar Studios for Jamie Lloyd Company); Privacy (Donmar Warehouse & Public Theater, New York);  Bad Jews (Theatre Royal Bath, West End & UK Tour); Labyrinth (Hampstead Theatre); Plastic, 4000 Miles, (Ustinov, Bath); The Wild Party (The Other Palace); Breaking The Code, A Doll’s House, Little Shop of Horrors (Manchester Royal Exchange); The Glass Menagerie (Headlong, UK Tour); I See You (Royal Court, Jerwood Theatre Upstairs); Playing For Time (Sheffield Crucible); The Grinning Man, The Crucible, The Life and Times of Fanny Hill (Bristol Old Vic). Il Trittico, Flight, Madame Butterfly, La Fanciulla (Opera Holland Park); Projet Polunin (Sadler’s Wells).

Designer
Ruth Sutcliffe

Ruth’s previous theatre credits include The Taming of the Shrew (Royal Shakespeare Company), Hedda Gabler (Royal & Derngate), Kingdom of Earth (The Print Room), Yerma (Gate Theatre and Hull Truck), The Duchess of Malfi (Theatre Royal Northampton), Bronte (Tricycle, and tour) and The Boy on the Swing (Arcola).

Cast

Sirine Saba
Sirine trained at RADA. Her theatre credits include Fireworks, The Spiral (Royal Court), Holy Warriors, Anthony and Cleopatra (Globe), Next Fall (Southwark Playhouse), The Winter's Tale, Taming of the Shrew, Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, HMS Pinafore (Regent's Park Open Air), The Keepers of Infinite Space (Park), The Fear of Breathing (Finborough), Scorched (Old Vic Tunels), Nation, Sparkleshark (National Theatre), Testing the Echo (Out Of Joint/Tricycle), Baghdad Wedding (Soho), Beauty and the Beast, Midnight's Children, The Tempest, The Winter's Tale, Pericles, Tales from Ovid, A Midsummer Night's Dream, A Warwickshire Testimony (all RSC), Cinderella (Bristol Old Vic), House and Garden (Northampton). Film and TV credits include Lipstick, Exhibition, Maestro, Death of the Revolution, Doctors, I am Slave, Silent Witness, Footballer's Wives, The Bill and Prometheus. Sirine has recorded a wide variety of plays, books and stories for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 3.
Scott Karim
Scott’s theatre credits include The Merchant of Venice (Globe Theatre), Dara (National Theatre), Great Britain (National Theatre/ Theatre Royal Haymarket), Grand Budapest Hotel (Secret Cinema), and Othello (National Theatre). For television he has appeared in Holby City (BBC).
Alexandra Gilbreath
Alexandra is an Olivier Award-nominated actor whose theatre credits include Shakespeare's Birthday Bash, The Merry Wives of Windsor (both RSC), Playhouse Creatures (Chichester Festival Theatre), Shallow Slumber (Soho Theatre), Othello (Sheffield Crucible Theatre), The Village Bike (Royal Court Theatre), Hay Fever (Rose Theatre Kingston), Twelfth Night (RSC Stratford/ West End), Lucky You (Magic Key Productions), Merry Wives: The Musical, The Tamer Tamed, The Taming of the Shrew, As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet, The Winter's Tale, Ghosts,  Love's Labour's Lost and The Country Wife (all RSC), Cyrano De Bergerac (RSC/ West End), The House of Bernarda Alba (Gate Theatre), Hedda Gabler (Ian Charleson Award, English Touring Co./ Donmar) and King Lear (West Yorkshire Playhouse). Television credits include Father Brown, Casualty, WPC 56, Doctors, EastEnders (all BBC), and Midsummer Night's Dreaming (RSC/ Google). Film credits include A Hundred Streets, Tulip Fever, The All Together, and Dead Babies. Alexandra is an associate artist with the RSC.
Niall Buggy
Niall is an Oliver Award-winning actor whose best known roles include Uncle Vanya (Gate Theatre, Dublin and Lincoln Center, NYC), for which he won Best Actor in the Irish Times Theatre Awards, Aristocrats (Hampstead Theatre, Manhattan Theater Club) for which he won a number of awards including the Time Out Award, Obie Award in New York, Drama Desk Award and a Clarence Derwent Award. He was awarded the Olivier Award for Best Comedy Performance in Dead Funny and won the TMA Award for Juno and the Paycock (Wyndham’s Theatre). Other theatre credits include Penelope (Druid Theatre, Edinburgh Festival, Hampstead Theatre), Whistle in the Dark (Kennedy Center), The Gigli Concert (Finborough Theatre), A Kind of Alaska (Gate Theatre), The Hanging Gardens (Abbey Theatre, Dublin), The Importance of Being Ernest (Harold Pinter Theatre), Translations (Sheffield Crucible), Haunted (Sydney Opera House and New York), After Play (Gate Theatre, Edinburgh and Sydney Festivals), and Guys and Dolls (Piccadilly Theatre). Television credits include Inspector Lewis, Dalziel and Pascoe, Father Ted, The Bill and Once in a Lifetime. Film credits include Mamma Mia, Casanova, The Butcher Boy, Alien 3, The Playboys and Mr Turner.
Nicholas Bailey
Nicholas’ theatre credits include Macbeth (Mercury Theatre), Soho Streets (Soho Theatre), Breakfast with Mugabe (Theatre Royale Bath), Mela (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Become a Man (Hackney Empire), Blue on Blue (Haymarket Basingstoke), A Sense of Justice (Perth Rep), Mother Courage and Her Children (Shared Experience), Dreaming (Manchester Royal Exchange, West End), Life is a Dream (Barbican/ Brooklyn Academy of Music), Easy Access (For the Boys) (Drill Hall), Life is a Dream (Edinburgh Royale Lyceum), King Lear (National Theatre), Hamlet, The Winter’s Tale (both Manchester Library Theatre), and  Julius Caesar (Manchester Royal Exchange). For television, Nicholas is best known for playing Dr Anthony Truman on EastEnders. Other credits include, Siblings (BBC3), Doctors (BBC), Anubis House (Lime Pictures, Nickelodeon), Law & Order UK (Kudos), Miranda (BBC), Manchester Passion (BBC4), Walter Tull: Forgotten Hero, Inside Out (BBC - presenter). Radio credits include Tokolosh, Albion Towers, Midwich Cuckoos, The Archers and Silver Street (BBC Radio).

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