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| Juliet Stevenson as Ruth Wolff in The Doctor |
The Doctor.
Written and directed by Robert Icke. Loosely based on Arthur Schnitzler’s 1918 play Professor Bernhardi. Designer Hildegard Bechtier, Lighting. Natasha Chivers. Sound and composition Tom Gibbons. An Almeida Theatre Production presented by Adelaide Festival by arrangement with the Ambassador Theatre Group and Almeida Theatre, Benjamin Lowy, Glass Half Full Productions with Fiery Angel and Charles Diamond in association with Scott Rudin and Sonia Friedman Productions. The Dunstan Playhouse. Adelaide Festival Centre. February 27 – March 1. March 3 – March 8 2020.
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins.
I barely manage to contain my anger. Writer and
director Robert Icke’s loose adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s 1918 novel, Professor
Bernhardi has unleashed a veritable Pandora’s Box of hypocrisy, prejudice
and intolerance. While retaining the essential story line of Schnitzler’s play
about a doctor who refuses to allow entry to a priest to perform the last rites
on a teenage girl dying of sepsis after a botched abortion, Icke’s play The
Doctor is a riveting and terrifyingly explosive indictment of religious
intolerance, sexual politics, gender power struggles and the individual’s
personal and professional battle against the forces of irrational belief.
Professor Ruth Wolff (Juliet Stevenson) is
director of a private medical institute and chair of the executive committee.
The teenage patient under her supervision is dying and a priest arrives on
behalf of the girl’s parents who are away to administer the last rites as
ordained by the Catholic faith. Wolff, the daughter of Jewish parents, refuses
the priest entry because she deems it not to be in the best interest of the
patient, who would then become aware that she is dying. Wolff is determined to
protect the girl’s best interests. The priest is determined to administer the
last rites. Christian belief confronts
secular ethics as a Christian servant of his God struggles to overcome the principled obstinacy of the doctor. During
the struggle, the patient dies, condemned in the Catholic faith to denial of
forgiveness before God. Such is Schnitzler’s and Icke’s catalyst for a more
profound examination of ethics and morals, enveloped in fierce debate and
conflicting opinion.
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Anni Domingo as Cyprian, Jamie Parker as The Priest and
Juliet Stevenson as Professor Ruth Wolff in The Doctor
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Public opinion swells in antagonistic ugliness
and vitriol at the news of the case. A belligerent father (Jamie Parker)
threatens hell on earth for a doctor who believes that she was rightfully
performing her duty independent of any religious belief. Dr. Hardiman (Naomi
Wirthner) seizes the opportunity to grasp power and position and the eventual
resignation of the doctor. Even her
former student and now Minister for Health turns against her in the face of
public reaction fueled by anti semitism, casting Wolff adrift to face the
consequence of her solitary action alone.
So, why am I angry? One reason is the sheer
power of Icke’s direction and the forceful clarity of his script. Another is
the outstanding performances of a cast, utterly committed to the essential
premise of a play that searingly exposes the failings of human nature and
illogical opinion couched in meaningless semantic. It is the dangerous province
of idiocy. And finally, I recoil at two particular scenes – the first an
executive committee meeting steeped in malicious intent and calculated
manipulation and the second a live
television debate which is no more than an inquisition in which Wolff is
subjected to trial by prejudice. The
scenes disturb not only because of their dramatic force, but because of the
truth that they reveal.
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Liv Hill as Sami. Juliet Stevenson as Ruth Wolff in
Robert Icke's production of The Doctor
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In a stellar cast, Stevenson gives a formidable
performance, charting the downfall of a tragic heroine, blinded by her fatal
flaw and propelled upon a path to her irrevocable and tragic fate. Stevenson charts Wolff’s emotional journey of
ultimate awareness. No Lear this and yet the stuff of tragedy. Stevenson’s Ruth
Wolff is a performance of greatness not to be missed.
Icke’s decision to cast at times against gender
in the case of the ghost of Ruth’s lover Charlie (a beautifully understated and
subtle performance by Joy Richardson) or
Wirthner’s conniving Hardiman or ethnicity in the case of Chris Colquhoun”s
Jewish colleague and supporter, Copley may unsettle more possibly in the
tradition of Brechtian Verfremdungseffekt. It does nothing to detract and
possibly enhances our readiness to judge. Icke’s contemporary analysis of Schnitzler’s
insight into our flawed humanity is this year’s theatrical jewel in the
Adelaide Festival’s crown.
