The Inequalities: Beyond Caring; Love; Faith, Hope and Charity

’He is a Chekhov of our time: holdinghis characters with as much humanity, compassion, humor and love - but withoutholding back his scathing indictment ofdeeply entrenched, systemic injustices andinequities.’ -David Schwimmer

The Inequalities combines three plays from British author and director Alexander Zeldin into a trilogy that tells new stories of love, compassion and resilience for our time of austerity.

Contextualised with an essay before each play and an in-depth interview with the author, Zeldin’s three pieces present intimate stories of work, home and community in a radical form of realism. Written after extensive research across the United Kingdom, and involving people affected by the central themes of the plays, The Inequalities goes beyond social chronicle, achieving a timeless portrait of humanity under duress. This is theatre that goes behind the mirror of our time to reveal the core of the collective human experience of being alive.

Beyond Caring: ＂This desolate, quietly intense devised drama gets under your skin and into your bones... unforgettable.＂ (The Times)

LOVE: ＂Gripping, amusing, uncomfortable, desperately moving. Zeldin shows us friction...but also kindness and dignity and lots of love without turning sugary.＂ (The Times)

Faith, Hope and Charity: ＂This is that rare thing: a necessary play that suggests Zeldin has taken on the role of the Victorian Henry Mayhew in compassionately documenting the lives of the urban poor.＂ (The Guardian)

Alexander Zeldin is a writer and director for theatre and film. His critically acclaimed play, Beyond Caring had its World Premiere at the Yard Theatre in Hackney in 2014, before transferring to the Temporary Theatre at the National Theatre in 2015. In 2015 Alexander was the recipient of the Quercus Trust Award and was appointed as Associate Director at Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Beyond Caring toured the UK and a new US production, re-developed for the US by Alexander and produced by Lookingglass Theater in conjunction with David Schwimmer’s company Dark Harbour Stories, opened in Chicago in April 2017. Alexander’s most recent play LOVE opened at the National Theatre in December 2016, before transferring to Birmingham Rep. A European tour took place in 2018 and LOVE has also been made into a film by the BBC and Cuba Pictures. In 2017, he was named Artist in Residence at the National Theatre and in 2018, was the winner of the Arts Foundation twenty-fifth anniversary Fellowship for Literature. His most recent play, Faith Hope and Charity opened to widespread acclaim at the National Theatre in 2019, where he is now an Associate Director. From 2020, he is an Associate Artist of the Odéon Théâtre de L’Europe in Paris.