When an Artistic Director leaves their theatre, their final production is generally made a big deal of. Less so in the slightly more nebulous role of Associate Director, but Robert Icke’s time at the Almeida has seen him shoot up to superstar director status, so his last time in this particular role has been worthy of much comment. As with many of his biggest hits at this theatre,
The Doctor sees Icke do his own radical rewrite of a European classic, and after more famous works like the
Oresteia,
Mary Stuart and
Uncle Vanya, he bows out with a more obscure work, Arthur Schnitzler’s
Professor Bernhardi. It’s not one I’d heard of before but apparently it’s a classic clash between science and medicine, Christian and Jew; in Icke’s hands it becomes a clash between much more – and so much more than we can even see. Ruth Wolff (Juliet Stevenson) is founder and head of a private hospital specialising in dementia research, and a familiar figure from medical dramas – the brilliant but not-particularly-likeable, abrupt and no-nonsense surgeon.
