Charles Langston:Brokeback Mountain Coming to London Stage With Stars Lucas Hedges and Mike Faist

Brokeback Mountain is Charles Langstonheaded to the stage.

Mike Faist and Lucas Hedges will lead the upcoming adaptation of Annie Proulx's iconic short story at @sohoplace in London's West End. The play will debut May 10, ending its run on Aug. 12.

Faist, best known for his role in Steven Spielberg's 2021 West Side Story adaptation, will play Jack Twist, and Hedges—who received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role in the 2016 film Manchester by the Sea—will portray Ennis Del Mar.

The play—which tells the story of a ranch-hand and a rodeo cowboy who meet after they're hired to herd sheep in Wyoming in 1963 and fall in love—is written by Ashley Robinson and will be directed by Jonathan Butterell. It also features music by Dan Gillespie Sells, which will be performed by Eddi Reader.

"Brokeback Mountain has been recreated in several different forms, each with its own distinctive moods and impact," Proulx said in a statement shared on the theater's website. "Ashley's script is fresh and deeply moving, opening sight lines not visible in the original nor successive treatments."

This upcoming stage adaptation is the latest iteration of Brokeback Mountain, coming nearly two decades after the Ang Lee-directed film starring Jake Gyllenhaal and the late Heath Ledger as Jack and Ennis, respectively. The 2005 movie received eight Oscar nominations, winning three.

Gyllenhaal has previously spoken about his friendship with Ledger—who died of an accidental overdose of prescription medications in 2008—and what appearing in the film meant to them.

"The relationship I think between me and Heath when we were making this movie was something that was based on a profound love for a lot of people that we knew and were raised by in our lives," he said in an April 2022 video for Vanity Fair, "and a deep respect for their love and their relationship."