Broadway’s Festen Will Close on May 20

The Broadway production of the controversial drama Festen will close this Saturday, May 20, following the evening performance at the Music Box Theatre. The show began previews on Thursday, March 23 and officially opened on Sunday, April 9; at the time of its closing, it will have played 20 previews and 49 regular performances.

Rufus Norris directed David Eldridge’s stage adaptation of the script of the 1998 Danish film with the same title. Featured in the cast are Larry Bryggman, Michael Hayden, Ali MacGraw, Julianna Margulies, Jeremy Sisto, John Carter, Diane Davis, Keith Davis, David Patrick Kelly, Stephen Kunken, Meredith Lipson, Carrie Preston, Ryan Simpkins, Christopher Evan Welch, and C.J. Wilson. Festen concerns the emotional fallout that occurs when, at a birthday party for a beloved patriarch, a devastating family secret is revealed.

In his review of the production for TheaterMania, David Finkle wrote: “If you like your theater truly and madly theatrical, have I got a show for you! If you like your theater Shakespearean or, better yet, brutally and bloodily Jacobean, I can suggest a production that will sate your appetite no matter how ravenous you are. It’s Festen, Rufus Norris’s firestorm treatment of the 1998 Dogme film Celebration, with a script by David Eldridge adapted from the screenplay and play by Thomas Vinterberg, Mogens Rukov, and Bo Hr. Hansen.”