Review Theatre: Mrs Klein | Almeida Theatre | Psychoanalysis | Nicolas Wright's 1988 play | Melanie Klein

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The Review - THEATRE by JOSIE HINTON
Published: 5 November 2009

Zoe Waites, Nicola Walker and Clare Higgins

Small wonder Klein family was troubled

MRS KLEIN
Almeida Theatre

THREE female psychoanalysts make up the entire character list of Nicolas Wright’s 1988 play Mrs Klein: a study of psychoanalysis based on the pioneering yet controversial 1920s figure Melanie Klein.
There is the formidable Mrs Klein, renowned for her unique insight into childhood, her daughter Melitta and German refugee assistant Paula. But it is the absent Hans – Mrs Klein’s dead son, killed in an apparent climbing accident – that provides the centre point from which this exploration unfolds.
The play takes place entirely in Mrs Klein’s Hampstead study in 1934. As it begins, she is preparing to travel to Budapest for her son’s funeral. But when a vivid dream brings her back home again, she is forced to confront her angry daughter Melitta, who is convinced Hans committed suicide in an attempt to escape his tyrannical mother.
A fierce mother-daughter battle ensues, and the family’s dirty laundry is aired in front of Mrs Klein’s seemingly meek assistant. It is clear that by seeking to understand her childrens’ minds through the detached eyes of an analyst, Mrs Klein has destroyed any maternal bonds.
Throughout the play, mother and daughter simultaneously inhabit dual roles. Mrs Klein is at once the eminent professional and the failed parent, desperate for love but devoid of natural maternal instinct.
Melitta switches between spiteful daughter and professional critic, attacking both the mother and psychoanalyst in Mrs Klein. Hovering in the background is Paula, whose role seems initially unclear. But with mother and daughter paralysed by guilt and spite, it is left to the Jewish emigree to uncover the truth of Hans’s death.
The stunning acting prevents the drama from becoming bogged down with its heavy subject matter or psychoanalytic discourse.
Clare Higgins is breathtaking as stoic matriarch Mrs Klein and Zoe Waites skilfully captures Melitta’s internal turmoil. Meanwhile, Nicola Walker’s careful performance as the needy Paula skilfully sets up the powerful closing scene.
Until December 5
020 7359 4404

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