The American actor John Malkovich is heading to the UK – not to the West End stage, but to make his London debut as a director at the Rose theatre in Kingston upon Thames.



He will do so by returning to the play Good Canary, which he first directed in France in 2007. Although Good Canary is set in New York, and written by the Californian Zach Helm, Malkovich has previously only directed it in French in Paris and Spanish in Mexico. He told the Guardian that he is “very happy” to be staging it at the Rose and “very happy to be doing it in English – which will be a relief”. Malkovich said the Rose was “quite a bit more intimate” than the Mexican and French theatres in which he staged the play.

The actor, known for his piercingly intense stage and screen presence, appeared as a serial killer at the Barbican, in London, in 2011 in The Infernal Comedy, a piece written specially for him, which also required a baroque orchestra and two sopranos. In 2013 he shot part of the thriller Red 2, co-starring Bruce Willis, in London. “I’ve directed a million plays but I’ve never directed a play there,” he said. “I think it will be a lot of fun.”

John Malkovich in The Infernal Comedy at the Barbican in 2011. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

A copy of Good Canary was first given to Malkovich by Charlie’s Angels actor Lucy Liu, Helm’s former partner. As well as performances around France, there was a Mexico City production starring Diego Luna (Y Tu Mamá También ) in the lead role of a self-destructive author. “There are two main characters – young Americans living in New York,” explained Malkovich. “It doesn’t really have a timeframe – it could be the present day. Ostensibly, the husband is becoming known as a talented novelist and his wife is a fairly difficult woman, very bright, who is an amphetamine addict. The play has a number of twists and turns I wouldn’t care to go into because of spoilers.”



“It’s not uncommon for me to do a play more than once,” he said. “I got quite used to it at Steppenwolf [the theatre company in Chicago where he began his career] … I also did that with Terry Johnson’s play Hysteria, which I did in English and in French and Spanish. I really like being able to revisit a piece of material. Actors are never the same and the physical space is never the same.”

Malkovich, completely unrecognised, slipped in for a look at the Rose a few weeks ago, and was delighted with the very plain theatre-in-the-round space, modelled on the ground plan of Shakespeare’s Rose: it reminded him of his earliest days with Steppenwolf.

“He still looks exactly like John Malkovich but nobody spotted him – it tends to be the voice that does it,” executive producer Jerry Gunn said. “Funnily enough no, he didn’t know our theatre, but he knew the area slightly from filming The Libertine at Hampton Court. When he saw the space he and the designer really liked it.”

Malkovich, whose award-festooned, eclectic career has included touring with orchestras and opera companies, fashion design, and an appearance in the 1999 film set inside his own head, Being John Malkovich, will direct Good Canary at the Rose this September.

The announcement is a considerable coup for the theatre, which despite its location in the outer suburbs has starry supporters including Sir Peter Hall as founding director, visiting companies including Peter Brook, and casts which have included Dame Judi Dench. Joely Richardson was one of the stars in last year’s sell-out revival by Sir Trevor Nunn of the epic Shakespeare compendium, The Wars of the Roses. Maxine Peake’s play Beryl has its London premiere there next month.

The Wars of the Roses at the Rose theatre, Kingston. Photograph: Mark Douet

Gunn said Good Canary arose out of worldwide interest in The Wars of the Roses, the first revival of a famous Royal Shakespeare production of the 1980s.

“It was a theatre producer I was having a conversation with in Japan who mentioned that Malkovich might be interested in an English-language production, and that it might suit our theatre. I read the play and thought it was absolutely terrific, and when we contacted Malkovich he was immediately interested.”

The Rose theatre only fully opened in 2008, after years of arguments over funding, and staged several productions in the half-finished concrete shell. It still has no regular Arts Council funding. Robert O’Dowd, chief executive, said it was a huge honour to continue to attract some of the most exciting talents of theatre and film. “We feel enormously privileged to have both John Malkovich making his London directorial debut … and another great American director Michael Rudman presenting his take on Arthur Miller’s classic All My Sons.”

Nunn, who had queues around the block for returns for his Wars of the Roses at the Rose – particularly for the days when the three plays were performed together in a Shakespeare marathon – will return in May to direct Shakespeare’s rarely performed King John.