The Broken Heart is a gripping, powerful and transformative drama that demonstrates the deeply moving humanity of one of the finest playwrights of the Jacobean period. This timeless piece explores a society where men and women are tested to their limits.”
– Dublin Theatre
“So what is it about these violent and baroque plays, four centuries old that haunt our contemporary imagination? What kind of culture did they spring from? And why are they once again filling our theatres?
– The Guardian
Intimacy. Intrigue. Indecency. In The Broken Heart a long feud between two Spartan families has ended with the loving engagement of their children, Penthea and Orgilus. Penthea’s father, however, dies before the wedding can take place, and her twin brother, Ithocles, forces her into a socially advantageous match with a ridiculously jealous older man. Ithocles returns to Sparta a war hero and falls in love with the Princess Calantha, hoping for precisely the joy he has deprived his sister. When Origlus takes his revenge, Calantha cannot stand aloof.
Called a “wildly imaginative” director by The Dubliner, Selina Cartmell observes that “The Broken Heart is both ancient and modern. Timeless issues of ‘perverse’ sexual and gender relationships are confronted as Ford interweaves dance, music and silence with his remarkable text.”
The cast of The Broken Heart features Annika Boras, Lady Macbeth in the Theatre’s acclaimed 2011 production of Macbeth, Saxon Palmer (Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice), Bianca Amato (The Coast Of Utopia, Arcadia), and Jacob Fishel, with Justin Blanchard, Olwen Fouéré, Philip Goodwin, Ian Holcomb, John Keating, Robert Langdon Lloyd, Tom Nelis, Margaret Loesser Robinson, and Andrew Weems.
In a strictly limited engagement, The Broken Heart begins previews February 4 and opens February 12, playing through March 4 at The Duke on 42nd Street, a NEW 42ND STREET® project, 229 West 42nd Street.