Fiona Shaw to star in 'Testament of Mary

05.11.13 | Joshua Farrington - The Bookseller

A theatrical adaptation of Colm Tóibín's Man Booker Prize-shortlisted novel The Testament of Mary will be performed at the Barbican Centre in London next year.
The play will be directed by Deborah Warner and star Fiona Shaw [pictured] as Mary.
It will be staged at the Barbican from 1st May to 25th May 2014, following a run on Broadway in New York.

Shaw said: “It's a chance in a lifetime to play the Virgin Mary, and not in a nativity play. This is a most secular piece where a mother is deserted by her son and she in turn deserts him. The playing of this universal mother-son story has in it the spirit not of religion, but of ordinary life—the loss of a child as he grows and leaves and the self-loathing of not being the mother she wanted to be."
Tóibín said he had "learned a great deal" from creating the play with Shaw and Warner.

The Testament of Mary (Viking) lost out to Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries (Granta) for the Man Booker Prize in October. It was the third time Tóibín had been nominated for the prize.