That Face

Polly Stenham’s multi award-winning debut play That Face in London for a limited ten week season starring Lindsay Duncan, Hannah Murray, Matt Smith, Catherine Steadman and Julian Wadham.

"Shatteringly powerful - a remarkable and unforgettable piece of theatre" The Daily Telegraph

Following a critically acclaimed sell-out season at The Royal Court Theatre (20 April to 19 May 2007), Polly Stenham’s debut play, Face That, which she wrote when she was 19, transfers to The Duke of York Theatre in London's West End from 1 May 2008 which Lindsay Duncan, Matt Smith, Catherine Steadman and Julian Wadham all reprising their roles from the original run. Casting subjeect to change.

Mia is at boarding school. She has access to drugs. They are Martha's. Henry is preparing for art college. He has access to alcohol. From Martha. Martha controls their lives. Martha is their mother.

"Exuberantly theatrical" The Times

That Face is a hard-hitting, intense and visceral dissection of parent-child relationships. In a family rent by dysfunction, Mia and Henry find themselves in the unenviable position of having to protect their own mother from herself.

Polly Stenham's That Face was developed for the stage through the Royal Court Theatre's Young Writers Programme. It was for her play That Face that Polly Stenham went on to win both the Evening Standard Theatre Award and Critics’ Circle Award for 'Most Promising Playwright', as well as the TMA Award for 'Best Play'. Polly Stenham has also received a substantial grant from the UK Film Council to adapt her play for the big screen.

"Lively and authentic... a beautifully directed production" The Independent

"There's a lot that's pretty startling about Polly Stenham's assured debut play That Face, not least that it is the work of a 19- year-old... Polly Stenham paints a portrait of a desperately dysfunctional upper middle-class family. Lindsay Duncan is terrifyingly believable as the alcoholic mother clinging like a deranged lover to her son (Matthew Smith), who has dropped out of school to try to look after her... Jeremy Herrin's excellent production insists that attention is paid to an eloquent new voice." The Mail on Sunday

"An assured debut... painful and sometimes painfully funny" The Financial Times

"Dominic Cooke, the Royal Court's new artistic director, promised middle-class plays that would speak to the theatre's captive audience, and Polly Stenham's That Face couldn't fulfil his brief more accurately... Polly Stenham is an economical writer blessed with an ear for dialogue. She is also blessed with a strong cast of fledgling and experienced actors. Lindsay Duncan puts in a performance to savour, at once nightmarish and tender... Stenham, though, is the star of the show, offering up a script that is moving, realistic and shot through with a macabre, knowing humour." The Sunday Telegraph

"The parent-child relations are darkly twisted in That Face, a very strong first play from Polly Stenham... The drama is climactically cranked up and, at root, old-fashioned with echoes of Noel Coward's The Vortex. Nonetheless, this domestic nightmare, with its adolescent panic and rage, touches a nerve... Lindsay Duncan is riveting and Matt Smith is electric - a neurotic, gangling youth with a capacity for feverous explosions." The Independent on Sunday

"The new director of the Royal Court, Dominic Cooke, has designs on his spectators: he thinks the denizens of SW1 have spent too much time goggling at the poor, and that they should have a goggle at their well-heeled selves. He has a point, as Polly Stenham's explosive first play, That Face, proves. At 20, Stenham is only a few years older than the tormenting and tormented schoolgirls she puts on stage. Not everything she shows is new, but it's seldom presented - Jeremy Herrin directs forcefully - with such full-out conviction." The Observer