Casting has been announced for the European premiere of the hit Off-Broadway play The Niceties by Eleanor Burgess, opening at the Finborough Theatre for a strictly limited four-week season on Tuesday, 1 October 2019.
The Niceties stars double Olivier award winner Janie Dee alongside Moronkẹ Akinola who makes her professional stage debut.
“You’re more afraid of looking like a racist than you are of being a racist. Don’t you want to think about that?”
At an elite East Coast university, an ambitious young black student and her esteemed white professor meet to discuss a paper the college junior is writing about the American Revolution. They’re both liberal. They’re both women. They’re both brilliant. But very quickly, discussions of grammar and Google turn to race and reputation, and before they know it, they’re in dangerous territory neither of them had foreseen – exposing dangerous divides that turn a private debate into a public war.
The Niceties is a complex and compelling depiction of racial and generational divides which speaks directly to our polarised, post-truth era, as it asks who gets to tell the story of America, and how.
Originally premiered at the Huntington Theatre, Boston, before transferring to Manhattan Theatre Club, New York City, The Niceties marks the European debut of a dazzling new American playwright, Eleanor Burgess.
Janie Dee says: “When I read The Niceties, I felt a blast of fear go through me. It affected me and it left me thinking. Eleanor has written a fresh, intelligent play which captures the voice and tone of today’s university student and graduate generation so precisely. I have always wanted to work at the Finborough and I’m really excited to be bringing Eleanor’s incredible writing into an intimate space where there’s nowhere to hide.”
