Dame Maureen Lipman, who played Adrien Brody’s mother in Roman Polanski’s 2002 Oscar-winning Holocaust drama The Pianist and currently stars in the long-running U.K. series Coronation Street, is bracing for a potentially turbulent appearance in a London suicide-awareness play after two actors withdrew from the production over her public comments about Israel and Palestine.
“The evening of the 10th may, I fear, be noisy,” Lipman tells The Hollywood Reporter by email, referring to her scheduled Sept. 10 performance in Right Before I Go at the Soho Theatre.
The play, written by Golden Girls and Gilmore Girls veteran Stan Zimmerman, draws upon real suicide notes and the experiences of people who survived attempts. Each performance is followed by a discussion involving the audience and a mental-health professional. Sept. 10 coincides with World Suicide Prevention Day.
But in the days before its limited London run, the production became the center of a political controversy after actors Gerard McCarthy and Iz Hesketh withdrew following the announcement of Lipman’s casting.
McCarthy, the Northern Irish actor known for Hollyoaks and The Fall, said they were leaving because of views Lipman has “publicly and repeatedly expressed regarding Israel and Palestine.”
