The production will begin performances at the Harold Pinter theatre on the 29th June.
It has been announced that Mark Rylance will return to the West End stage this Summer in Tom Morris’s production of the play written by Stephen Brown with Mark Rylance, which premiered at the Bristol Old Vic last year.
Talking about reprising the title role, Mark Rylance said; “Here is a person who makes one of the most important discoveries in modern medicine – what we now call ‘Bacteria’ – and yet he is pretty much unknown because for forty years, until Louis Pasteur and Dr Lister make the same discovery, no one will listen to him. Why? I was intrigued. The inspiration to act our story with a chorus of ballet dancers and a quartet representing the many thousands of mothers who perished unnecessarily, makes this a very powerful piece of theatre for me. I am thrilled to be reviving it in London at the Harold Pinter Theatre.”
Mark Rylance is set to star 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. Only Dr Semmelweis can see the invisible killer at work, but to stop it, he must convince his colleagues to admit culpability and approve change. 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?
The creative team behind the production includes: Set and Costume Design by Ti Green; Lighting Design by Richard Howell Choreography by Antonia Franceschi and Music by Adrian Sutton.
Dr Semmelweis will play at the Harold Pinter Theatre from the 29th June until the 7th October. To find out more visit: https://drsemmelweistheplay.com/