SEVERAL familiar faces will be starring in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s world premiere of Anders Lustgarten’s new play - The Seven Acts of Mercy - when it opens in Stratford-upon-Avon next month.. 

Among the casting recently announced are Patrick O’Kane, Tom Georgeson and Edmund Kingsley while the RSC’s Deputy Artistic Director, Erica Whyman, will direct the production which opens for a run from November 24 through to February 10, 2017.

Named after Caravaggio’s 1607 painting, the play takes place across a gap of 400 years, between the creation of the masterpiece in Naples in 1606, and present-day Bootle, where a retired dock worker attempts to teach his grandson about the life awaiting him.

The visceral new play, confronting the dangerous necessity of compassion in a world where it is in short supply, features Patrick O’Kane, who returns to the RSC after playing Macbeth in Conall Morrison’s 2007 production, as Caravaggio.

O’Kane’s other theatre performances include Jimmy in Owen McCaffertys’ award-winning play Quietly, The Crucible in Belfast’s Lyric Theatre, and Doctor Faustus at the Manchester Royal Exchange. He has appeared in hit TV shows Game of Thrones (HBO) and The Fall (BBC Two).

Tom Georgeson plays retired dock-worker Leon. Georgeson is known for his roles as DI Harry Naylor in Between the Lines (BBC One), and in the Alan Bleasdale TV dramas Boys from the Blackstuff (BBC Two), Scully (Channel 4) and G.B.H. (Channel 4).

His film work includes A Fish Called Wanda, and more recently he has appeared in Ashes to Ashes (BBC One) and Channel 4’s award-winning drama Shameless.

Edmund Kingsley, known for his performances in Martin Scorsese’s 2011 film Hugo, and more recently as John Maynard Keynes in Life in Squares (BBC Two), returns to the RSC to play Marchese. He was last on the RSC stage in Marina Carr’s Hecuba (Swan Theatre, 2015), directed by Erica Whyman.

Leon’s grandson, Mickey, is played by 16-year-old Liverpudlian actor TJ Jones, who has previously appeared in Mat Whitecross’ 2012 film Spike Island, about the famous The Stone Roses gig.

The Seven Works of Mercy, also known as The Seven Acts of Mercy, is a 1607 oil painting by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, which to this day resides in the Church of Pio Monte della Misericordia in Naples, for which it was originally commissioned.

The painting, inspired by the Book of Matthew chapter 25 verse 35, depicts seven acts of mercy in traditional Catholic belief: Bury the dead; visit the imprisoned; feed the hungry; shelter the homeless; clothe the naked; visit the sick; refresh the thirsty.

It was painted after Caravaggio fled Rome for Naples, a price on his head for the murder of a man.

Anders Lustgarten, whose searing political plays such as Lampedusa, Black Jesus, and If You Don’t Let Us Dream We Won’t Let You Sleep have gained him wide critical acclaim, makes his RSC debut.

Lustgarten credited his lifelong admiration of Caravaggio as part of his inspiration to write The Seven Acts of Mercy.

He says: “His desire to tell the truth about the world, and reclaim art for real people motivates my own writing. The aesthetic of his work and his personal violence and self-loathing are intensely theatrical. The idea of compassion, which animates The Seven Acts of Mercy and his work in general, is drastically needed in the modern world.”

Lustgarten’s latest play takes its audience between Naples in 1606, where Caravaggio is working on The Seven Acts of Mercy, his first painting since he killed a man and fled Rome, and present day in the Merseyside area.