The off-Broadway production of Tennessee Williams’ The Two-Character Play cancelled previews on June 15 and 16 due to an injury to star Amanda Plummer. The June 17 performance has also been cancelled, but Plummer intends to return to New World Stages for opening night, June 19, as previously announced. The Two-Character Play co-stars Brad Dourif and is directed by Gene David Kirk.
“Ms. Plummer has sustained a knee injury which is causing her some discomfort,” the show’s producers said in a statement. “On doctor’s orders, she has been instructed to rest the leg as much as possible. Therefore, we felt it in the best interest of the production that after two extraordinary and luminous previews [on June 13 and 14] to cancel the final ones in order for Ms. Plummer to heal. We wished to follow the physician's guidance, while respecting Ms. Plummer's wish to take the stage.”
In The Two-Character Play, reality and fantasy are interwoven as two actors on tour—brother and sister—find themselves deserted by their troupe. Faced by an audience expecting a performance, they begin to perform, finding it difficult to differentiate themselves from their roles and reality from illusion.
The Two-Character Play debuted in London in 1967 and was produced on Broadway in 1973 under the title Out Cry, where it played for 10 days and was dismissed as being too experimental. After years of withholding the rights, Williams’ estate granted permission for Gene David Kirk to present the play at London’s Jermyn Street Theatre, where it opened in 2010 to critical praise.