Seven time Emmy Award-winner Terry Jastrow’s drama The Trial Of Jane Fonda, comes to the Park Theatre in July in a new production starring Oscar nominated and Golden Globe winning actress Anne Archer as Jane Fonda.
Anne Archer is perhaps best known for her role opposite Michael Douglas in Adrian Lyne’s thriller Fatal Attraction. Other film credits include Robert Altman’s Short Cuts, Harrison Ford’s wife in Patriot Games and Clear And Present Danger and television series include The Ghost Whisperer and The Grinder.
1972. North Vietnam: Driven to halt the slaughter of young lives, iconic movie star Jane Fonda travels to Vietnam where she is photographed laughing and clapping, astride an anti-aircraft gun, designed to shoot down American planes. Overnight the soldiers’ sexy pin-up becomes ‘Hanoi Jane’; traitor to her country and betrayer of those very young men. 1988. Waterbury, Connecticut: Bitter demonstrations by veterans halt filming on a movie co-starring Fonda and Robert De Niro. Determined to stop her past dictating her future, Jane requests a meeting and enters a room full of angry men for whom the war still rages. The content of the meeting is never divulged. Having retraced Fonda’s steps, interviewed her guides, dozens of veterans and Fonda herself, Terry Jastrow’s powerful drama conjectures the battles which were fought in that encounter; battles which are as much to do with the ability of recorded images to dictate our memories as they are to do with truth.
The most famous actress of her time, Jane Fonda was vocal in her opposition to the Vietnam War. In 1972 she went to the capital city of North Vietnam, Hanoi, to call worldwide public attention to the Nixon administration’s cover-up of US policy of deliberately bombing the country’s vital system of irrigation dikes. During that trip she made radio broadcasts denouncing as a war crime the US use of antipersonnel bombs banned by the Hague Convention, and visited US POWs. On the final day of her trip, she was photographed laughing and clapping astride a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun. This activity by Fonda caused enormous controversy and galvanized a huge hate campaign amongst the US military and supporters.
The Trial of Jane Fonda is directed by Joe Harmiston, with Set Design is by Sean Cavanagh, Composer & Sound Designer is Matthew Bugg, Video Projection Designer is Louise Rhoades-Brown, Lighting Designer is Tony Simpson and Costume Designer is Roberto Surace.
The Trial Of Jane Fonda will be presented at The Park Theatre from 13 July – 20 August 2016
