Tag Archives: Zoe Waites

“King Lear” at the Almeida Theatre

London audiences are spoilt when it comes to stars and Shakespeare. Depending on their age, anyone aspiring to credibility tackles Hamlet or King Lear, and we all get to benefit from the results. Among the exciting celebrity strewn shows, none is more splendid than Michael Attenborough’s latest production of King Lear at the Almeida, with Jonathan Pryce in the title role. Not only is Pryce gut-wrenchingly good – every aspect of this riveting production deserves praise.

Pryce’s Lear is full of subtlety and dynamism. By turns forceful and frail, he makes the character’s decline unbearably moving, even while injecting an unusual degree of humour into the role. But any banter comes with a steely edge – this is a man used to people laughing when he tells a joke. There is a residual power that makes it easy to imagine what kind of ruler he was.

There are also fine performances in the supporting roles, especially from the women in the cast. Phoebe Fox is a spirited Cordelia whose prickly edge makes it easy to identify her as her father’s daughter. Zoe Waites and Jenny Jules play Goneril and Regan with a terrifying ferocity that remains credible despite the extremity of their actions.

Tom Scutt’s design makes the most of the stripped-back venue, evoking prisons and army camps, adding to a tense production that at times is paced like a thriller. Attenborough’s attention to detail is captivating – watching the actors’ hands, as they reflect emotions from repression through to violence, becomes compelling. You will be gripped the whole way through.

Until 3 November 2012

www.almeida.co.uk

Photo by Keith Pattison

Written 12 September 2012 for The London Magazine

“Mrs Klein” at the Almeida Theatre

Nicholas Wright’s play deals knowledgeably with the life of formidable psychoanalyst Melanie Klein and her prestigious contribution to her science.

The period atmosphere of 1930s intellectual émigrés is carefully evoked with touches of tender irony, alongside a playful knowledge of the layman’s prejudices used to great comic effect. There are many moments of laughter in a work that is often disturbingly dark – Klein’s personal tragedy is a heart-rending one.

The story opens with the death of her son, following which Klein presents herself as a capable woman still in control. Through the course of the play, through interaction with the only two other characters we meet, we see this denial deepen and have to encounter the horrid possibility that her son’s death was actually suicide.

These two other players are Klein’s daughter Melitta and impoverished emigrée Paula, both also psychoanalysts. They have a frank and yet fraught relationship with one another but that seems simple in contrast to their relations with Klein.

Zoe Waites plays Melitta. Having been psychoanalysed by her mother (a shocking practice common in the early days of the discipline) a superficial competence only briefly hides her damaged self. Waites shows the character’s frustration with a mother she simply cannot compete against. The cruelty she plots fails to satisfy her, her attempts at sophistication seem pathetic, and she often gesticulates like a child.

Nicola Walker’s Paula is a more complex character whose story unfolds as the play progresses.  Initially a diffident presence, we discover her ambition is to become a patient of the great Mrs Klein. As intimacy deepens, it seems the plan is to take the place of daughter. The final scene shows their first consultation – planned to prevent reconciliation between mother and birth daughter. Keen to show her academic credentials, Paula has some of the clunkiest lines but delivers them with great expression.

Both actresses are shadowed by a wonderful performance from Claire Higgins as Mrs Klein. Her presence on stage is truly commanding, as she moves us from laughter to deep sympathy – an achievement all the greater since her character itself is portrayed as being far from endearing. At turns brittle and domineering, she can also be vulnerable and fragile. Her one violent outburst is electrifying, and her final breakdown likely to bring you to tears.

Higgins should surely be nominated for her fourth Olivier award for making a truly wonderful night at the theatre.

Until 5 December 2009

www.almeida.co.uk

Photo by John Haynes

Written 3 November 2009 for The London Magazine