Film stars line up for West End premiÿre of Dorfman's sequel to 'Death and the Maiden'

The Chilean playwright Ariel Dorfman has written a sequel to his award-winning drama Death and the Maiden, which will receive its world première in the West End of London this autumn.

The British actress Catherine McCormack, whose credits include the films Braveheart and Spy Game, is being lined up for the new work, Purgatorio, alongside Gael Garcia Bernal, the 24-year-old star of the Mexican hit films Y Tu Mama Tambien and Amores Perros.

Professor Dorfman said the play was the "thematic sequel" to the Oliver Award- winning Death and the Maiden, which beguiled audiences with its story of a former political prisoner accidentally reunited with a doctor who tortured her.

The part was played by Juliet Stevenson at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 1991, and Sigourney Weaver later assumed the role in a film version with Ben Kingsley.

The characters in Purgatorio are not those first seen in Death and the Maiden. But while refusing to give many details, Professor Dorfman said the new work stemmed from the tragic emotions experienced in the earlier piece.

"How do I forgive the person who has most hurt me in the world? And what if the one person who has the power to free you from torment and memory is the very person you have wronged? What if you had almost all eternity to find the answer?" he said, from his home in the United States.

"In Purgatorio, one man and one woman, tied by love and hatred like so many couples in time, will try – they must try – and are forced to try to find that answer."

The play is being staged in London by Out of the Blue Productions, the company behind the Kenneth Lonergan hit, This is Our Youth, whose hip American casts including Matt Damon and Anna Paquin has been packing in a more youthful audience in the West End.

Clare Lawrence, from Out of the Blue, said the play took on the challenge left by the end of Death and the Maiden where the doctor is forced to confess his torture or risk losing his life at the hands of his former victim. "It is an enormously clever, witty and sexy play which I think will surprise a good many people," she said.

Although there has been some criticism at the number of film stars populating the West End stage, Ms Lawrence defended the choice of McCormack and Bernal for the play, which has only the two characters.

"Catherine and Gael are both extraordinary talents in their own right. They are trained theatre actors and the fact that they are also successful film stars only serves to emphasise how important this project is to them, that they can choose to put Hollywood on hold for a few months," she said.

"I think it is a very encouraging sign that today's stars are as excited about the West End as they are about making movies. As a result, new audiences are finding their way into theatres, and discovering what an exhilarating experience it can be."

McCormack's stage credits include appearances at the National Theatre in its acclaimed production of All My Sons by Arthur Miller and in the recent season of plays designed to attract new audiences in the Loft.

Purgatorio will be the first major Dorfman play to be produced in London since Death and the Maiden opened at the Royal Court, winning best play and best actress Olivier Awards, before transferring to the West End.

Death and the Maiden was of enormous personal significance to the writer, who was forced into exile after the 1973 military coup in Chile, the country where he grew up.

It was written in the summer of 1990 during Chile's transition to democracy and is typical of Professor Dorfman's passionate interest in human rights. The work has been performed in more than 30 countries.

The playwright is Professor of Literature at Duke University, North Carolina.