Ruthless - The Survival of Ruth Madoff

DATES: 3 - 29 June 2025


Tuesday – Sunday
Tue/Wed/Thu: 7.30 pm
Fri: 7.00 pm
Sat: 2.30 pm & 7.00 pm
Sun: 2.30 pm & 6.30 pm

PRESS NIGHT: 3 June 2025, 7.30 pm



The woman is suffering. She is married to a man, who managed to embezzle USD 65 Billion from every Tom, Dick and Harry. She is
married to Bernard L. Madoff. She is Ruth Madoff. 13 years have passed since the scandal shook the world and Bernie was locked away for 150 years. Ruth did cut off all contact, yet- she never divorced her childhood sweetheart she married at 18.

Now, at 80, with both sons gone - one by suicide, the other by accelerated cancer – lonely, destitute Ruth drifts through the wreckage of her
former life, as gone is her status as New York’s First Lady, gone are her luxury and wealth, gone are her family – gone is … everything.
In her daily routine, Ruth gets herself ready for her eternal future in the Garden of Eden. As she prepares breakfast for her successful,
happy family, she is abruptly reminded of her illusionary life - of her tragic loneliness. When this traumatised woman is interrupted by the
charm of a young Italian pizza delivery boy, she instantly is fueled by the vision to leave with him for romantic Venice.
But as Ruth learns of her husband’s demise in prison, her life takes a chaotic turn for the worse: not only is she relentlessly hounded by paparazzi, but the demons of her past torture her anew. With Ruth’s life breaking apart, she renounces the world on her own - still facing the crucial question: how well did she actually know her husband?
RUTHLESS is a fictional play, drawn from the real story of this mythical figure. Ruth Madoff, an innocent bystander - or a willing accomplice?

Cast:

Ruth Madoff Emily Swain



Creative:
Writer, Director & Producer: Roger Steinmann
Set Designer Charlie San Myint
Dramaturgic Adviser Ruth Ahmed
Marketing Coordinator Kathleeen Murtagh
Administrative Assistant Ruth Meier
Graphic Designer Vy Miracle



Emily Swain is an Anglo-Irish actor, filmmaker, and voice artist, starring as Queen
Eloise in Royal-ish - a Hallmark original movie (2025).
With a career spanning broadcast, network television, major streaming platforms, stage, and independent film, Swain has built a rich and varied body of work across the UK and internationally.
On screen, her credits include work for the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Hulu, and Netflix. She appeared with Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan in the Netflix feature Dunki, and starred in Hulu’s The Heritage (Bite Size Halloween). Other recent work includes ITV’s Grace and Code of Silence (both airing in 2025), and What About Me, winner of Best Short Form at the 2024 Royal Television Society Southern Awards.
Her stage work includes the West End, national and international tour of Mike Bartlett’s multi award-winning King Charles III (for the Almeida Theatre Company), an all-female A Scandal in Bohemia staged in Pakistan, and The Life and Times of Jelly Roll Morton, performed at Chichester Festival Theatre’s Minerva Studio (2025).


Roger Steinmann is a Swiss-Hollywood film- and theater-maker in the domains of directing and producing his own authoring. Born 6 November 1961 in Zurich, he began making Super-8 films at the age of eight.
In the 1980s, Steinmann turned to theatre, and in the 90s back to film and to Hollywood. His best-known work is ILLUSION INFINITY (2004), starring Dee Wallace (E.T.), Mickey Rooney (Night at the Museum), Barbara Carrera (Never Say Never Again), and Timothy Bottoms (The Last Picture Show).
In 2018, Steinmann began shooting the feature PHONY in Thailand and Switzerland. Burt Reynolds, Talia Shire, and Faye Dunaway were set to star in Los Angeles, though following Reynolds' untimely death, the production was interrupted, and thenfurther impeded by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 2022, Steinmann wrote, directed and produced the social-distancing satire WIN=WIN in Switzerland. Further original stage plays include the triple-and twin-mistaken-identity crime-comedy WENN DER DRILLING MIT DER ZWILLING, and the post-digital-dystopian satire w.w.STEINZEIT. Its Englishadaptation, w.w.STONEAGE, is in preparation for a 2026 premiere in London, following the 2025 production of RUTHLESS.