Golden Globe Award nominee Stacy Keach, who is recovering after suffering a mild heart attack onstage during the opening night of Pamplona at the Goodman Theatre, says he hopes to return to the play next year.
The play, in which Keach plays a late-in-life Ernest Hemingway, was halted midway through its May 30 opening night performance after Keach appeared ill and confused on stage. On June 2, the Goodman announced that the entire run of the play had been canceled in order to allow Keach to recover from what was later diagnosed as a mild heart attack.
Keach’s doctors are expecting “a complete recovery following a period of cardiac rehabilitation and rest,” according to the Goodman.In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Keach said he had “an unfulfilled obligation to the play, to the city and to myself,” and aims to bring Pamplona back to the Goodman in 2018.
Keach also spoke about experiencing a heart attack midway through his performance, saying, “I felt like this great fog had come over me. It was the most bizarre moment of my entire career… I was feeling no pain. The whole time, I was hoping that I was just in the middle of an actor's nightmare, and that I would soon wake up and find myself back in the position where I knew what I was doing again.”
Thirty years ago, Keach was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award for playing the author in a 1988 television miniseries titled Hemingway. Keach and Falls previously collaborated on Finishing the Picture and King Lear at the Goodman.
