Tilda Swinton is coming to Off-Broadway, and she’s bringing the role that made her name in theater.
Swinton will star in Manfred Karge’s one-woman play Man to Man at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in Manhattan’s West Village. Performances start Feb. 21, 2027, for an eight-week run, with opening night set for Feb. 28, New York Theatre Guide reported. It’s her New York stage debut, and her first stage production in more than three decades, according to TheaterMania.
What “Man to Man” Is About
The play follows Ella Gericke, who takes over her late husband Max’s identity and crane-operator job in 1930s Germany. Living as Max allows her to earn a wage, but it also means carrying that identity through years of dictatorship and war. The production’s official synopsis describes her struggle to survive across those upheavals.
Swinton is alone onstage for about 90 minutes, with no intermission.
Karge wrote it in German in 1982 as Jacke wie Hose. Stephen Unwin directed Swinton as Ella in the original U.K. production at Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre, using Anthony Vivis’s translation. It transferred to London’s Royal Court in 1988. John Maybury filmed it with Swinton in 1992, the year she also starred as the gender-shifting Orlando in Sally Potter’s film.
London Critics on the Royal Court Revival
Unwin returned to direct the revival, which opened Sept. 5 at the Royal Court as part of the theater’s 70th anniversary season and ran through Oct. 24. He also revised Vivis’s translation.
The reviews were strong. Time Out’s Andrzej Lukowski gave it four stars and wrote, “Tilda Swinton has still got it.” Sarah Crompton of WhatsOnStage, also four stars, said “Swinton’s understated yet fierce performance carries you through,” and that “a play written in the 1980s speaks loudly today.”
Greg Stewart of Theatre Weekly noted the script now includes references to “the resurgence of right-wing politics in Germany.” He also found that the story “occasionally wanders.”
Where to See Tilda Swinton in “Man to Man” Before New York
The production heads back to where it started, the Traverse in Edinburgh, from Oct. 29 to Nov. 7, according to Theatre Weekly. It plays the Berliner Ensemble in Berlin in February, before the New York run.
New York tickets are on sale through the official Man to Man website. Previews begin Feb. 21, 2027, and opening night is Feb. 28.
