Ruffalo, Hecht to lead preview of ‘Ironweed’ play
William Kennedy’s Pulitzerwinning “Ironweed” is heading to the stage.
Academy Award nominee Mark Ruffalo (“Poor Things”) and Tony Award nominee Jessica Hecht (“Summer, 1976”) will lead “IRONWEED: An Evening of Art & Humanity,” a onenight-only preview of the upcoming stage adaptation of “Ironweed,” on May 17 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The performance will be directed by Jodie Markell, who is adapting the book alongside Kennedy.the multidisciplinary production, produced by Brad Gilbert, will weave live performance
with recorded sound including excerpts from the forthcoming audio recording of the play, which features several songs by Tom Waits and an original
score by Tamar-kali. The audio play is scheduled to drop this fall.following the performance, Vinson Cunningham from The New Yorker will moderate a conversation with Ruffalo, Hecht and local housing advocates on the nationwide homelessness crisis.
“Ironweed” follows vagrant Francis Phelan, played by Ruffalo, as he returns to Depression-era Albany seeking redemption 22 years after accidentally killing his infant son.
Phelan wanders the streets alongside his former girlfriend Helen Archer, played by Hecht, encountering the ghosts of his past and present.
While “Ironweed” was rejected 13 times by publishers, its 1983 release put Kennedy on the literary map, winning both the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and a National Book Critics Circle
Award. In 1987, the book was adapted into a movie starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep.
The novel recently received a marathon reading to honor its 40th anniversary at Albany Distilling Co. and Capital Repertory Theatre.
The event featured members of the community reading with Kennedy taking the stage for the final chapters; it was hosted by the New York State Writers Institute, which Kennedy founded with money from his Macarthur grant in 1983.
Tickets go on-sale to the general public at 1 p.m. on April 18. For more information visit www.bam.org.