Duncan Macmillan adapts Paul Auster’s City of Glass for the stage

Paul Auster's City of Glass at Lyric Hammersmith

It has been announced that 59 Productions, HOME & Lyric Hammersmith will present the world premiere of Paul Auster's City of Glass adapted by Duncan Macmillan, which will run at the Lyric Hammersmith from 20 April to 13 May 2017, with an official opening on 26 April 2017, following a run at HOME in Manchester.

Adapted from the first novel of 'The New York Trilogy' by Paul Auster and the graphic novel by Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli, this original stage adaptation is by Olivier Award-nominated playwright behind West End hits such as People, Places and Things, and 1984.

"When reclusive crime writer Daniel Quinn receives a mysterious phone call from a man seeking a private detective in the middle of the night, he quickly and unwittingly becomes the protagonist in a real-life thriller of his own. He falls under the spell of a strange and seductive woman, who engages him to protect her young husband from his sociopathic father. As the familiar territory of the noir detective genre gives way to something altogether more disturbing and unpredictable, Quinn becomes consumed by his mission, and begins to lose his grip on reality. Will he be drawn deeper into the abyss, or might unmasking this dark story of familial abuse and religious conspiracy provide the purpose and meaning he needs to rebuild his shattered life?"

City of Glass is directed by 59 Productions' founding director Leo Warner with movement by Kim Brandstrup, sound design by Gareth Fry, original music by Nick Powell, and design inspired by the graphic novel by Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli. The production will feature cutting-edge projection-mapping, combined with stagecraft, magic and illusion to immerse audiences into Quinn's increasingly dystopic and fragmented world.

Paul Auster's 'City of Glass' was first published in the United States in 1985 and appeared in the UK as the initial volume in The New York Trilogy (1987). Considered one of the great masterpieces of contemporary American fiction, it has been translated into more than 40 languages and has never been out of print in the past three decades.

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