Pity Tickets
Rory Mullarkey brings his new play to the Royal Court Theatre, as part of the venue’s highly anticipated 2018 season. Asking whether things are really getting worse, and whether we really care, Pity is a sharp, chaotic take on society, set on a seemingly normal day. The production plays a limited summer season at the London theatre.
“Don’t forget the lighting strike.”
Rory Mullarkey returns to the Royal Court with his latest play Pity, which features as part of the theatre’s highly anticipated 2018 season. Set on a seemingly normal day, the pertinent play sees a ridiculous chain of events occur that ask whether things are getting worse, and if we really care.
On a normal day, a person stands in the market square and watches the world go by. But what happens next verges on the absolute ridiculous. Cue ice cream, sunshine, dogs, a wedding, bombs, candles, blood, lighting, sandwiches, snipers, looting, gunshots, babies, actors, azaleas, famine, fountains, statues and atrocities of all kinds. And tanks – probably.
Pity is the new play by Rory Mullarkey, who debuted at the venue in 2014 with The Wolf from the Door. An award-winning writer, he has received the George Devine Award, the Pinter Commission and the James Tait Black Prize for Drama. Further works include Saint George & the Dragon at the National Theatre, Cannibals and Single Sex.
Royal Court Associate Director Sam Pritchard directs, with credits including Pygmalion at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, which later embarked on a national tour, There Has Possibly Been an Accident and Fireface. Royal Court credits include Grimly Handsome and B.
The production features as part of the 2018 season, which includes contemporary works such as Thomas Eccleshare’s Instructions for Correct Assembly, Ear for Eye by Debbie Tucker Green and The Cane by Mark Ravenhill. Pity runs at the Royal Court from 12 July to 11 August 2018, with a press night on 18 July 2018.
Sorry this show closed 11 August 2018, we recommend these similar productions.
Pity Reviews
User Reviews
I recently went to a play described as an absurdist farce. No, this is the one that fits that description! Actually, the one thing my group could all agree on was that it is absurd. Utterly. Let me say in advance - I adored it, as did one other of us Read more
A rather madcap play acted at full pelt and is totally unpredictable and will leave you exhausted. It could do with tightening up in the latter half and is wisely played without an interval as it might otherwise lose more of the audience as you will Read more