CULTURE

Three Plays

Theater you shouldn’t miss this month.

by Diane Solway

betrayal-daniel-craig-rachel-weisz

The moodiest and most brooding James Bond ever to come our way, Daniel Craig strikes me as ideally cast in the role of the cuckolded husband in this fall’s Broadway revival of Betrayal. Performances begin October 27, but the production has been stirring up intrigue for a while—and it’s not hard to see why: Craig will star opposite his real-life wife, Rachel Weisz (above, with Rafe Spall and Craig), and the renowned Mike Nichols will direct. A reverse-chronology portrait of a triangular relationship, Harold Pinter’s trenchantly observed 1978 play has long been one of my favorites.

In another tale of betrayal, London’s Donmar Warehouse brings its remarkable all-female version of Julius Caesar to New York’s St. Ann’s Warehouse, starting October 3. Directed by Phyllida Lloyd (The Iron Lady) and set in a women’s prison, it features a bold performance by Harriet Walter in the role of Brutus.

A lying husband’s Wall Street scam, meanwhile, is at the center of actress Amanda Peet’s debut work as a playwright, The Commons of Pensacola (at New York’s Manhattan Theatre Club, beginning October 22). Blythe Danner and Sarah Jessica Parker star as a mother and a daughter suddenly divested of their life of luxury.