Mrs Klein - Clare Higgins joins cast
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
CLARE Higgins will play the title role in the first London revival of Nicholas Wright’s Mrs Klein, which runs at the Almeida Theatre from October 29 (previews from October 22) to December 5, 2009.
Thea Sharrock will direct a cast that also includes Nicola Walker as Paula and Kate Ashfield as Melitta.
In London in 1934, Melanie Klein is one of the most admired, yet controversial, psycho-analysts of her time, renowned for her unique insight into the secret world of childhood. But her relationship with her psycho-analyst daughter Melitta has been damaged almost beyond repair, and an unexpected message from abroad brings it to bitter confrontation.
The news also poses a mystery that even Mrs. Klein, despite her genius for analysis, cannot solve. It is left to her new assistant, a refugee from Hitler’s Berlin, to find a possible answer.
Clare Higgins, who will be making her Almeida debut as Mrs Klein, is currently playing the Countess de Rossillion in All’s Well That Ends Well at the National Theatre, where her previous credits include Nicholas Wright’s Vincent in Brixton as well as Oedipus, The Secret Rapture, Children’s Hour, Sweet Bird of Youth, Absence of War, Napoli Millionaria and King Lear.
The multi award-winning actress’s many other theatre credits include The Fever (Royal Court Theatre); Death of a Salesman and Night of the Iguana (Lyric Theatre); Hecuba and Phaedra (Donmar Warehouse); Ride Down Mount Morgan (Wyndham’s Theatre) and Heartbreak House (Chichester Festival Theatre).
Her screen credits include Minder, Midsomer Murders, Being Human, Murder in Suburbia, Casanova and Kavanagh QC (TV); Spring 1941, Caught in the Act, The Libertine, Stage Beauty, House of Mirth and Small Faces (film).
Nicola Walker‘s theatre credits include Gethsemane (National Theatre); Relocated, Fresh Kills, The Libertine, Man of Mode and Hated Nightfall (Royal Court Theatre); Tales from Vienna Woods, Edmond and Free (National Theatre); The Dead Eye Boy (Hampstead Theatre) and A Lie in the Mind and Passion Play (Donmar Warehouse). She was last seen at the Almeida in Thea Sharrock’s production of Cloud Nine.
On screen she has appeared in Spooks, Oliver Twist, People Like Us, Red Cap, Moll Flanders and Milner (TV); Shooting Dogs, Thunderbirds, Shiner and Four Weddings and a Funeral (film).
Kate Ashfield‘s theatre credits include The Importance of Being Earnest (Royal Exchange); Peaches, Blasted and Shopping and Fucking (Royal Court Theatre); The Positive Hour (Hampstead Theatre) and Closer (Lyric Theatre).
Her television credits include The Diary of Anne Frank, Talk to Me, Tsunami, Crime and Punishment and This Little Life, for which she won the RTS Best Actor Award. And her film credits include The Kid, The Lowdown, Princess Caraboo and Late Night Shopping, for which she won the British Independent Film Award for Best Actress.
The Almeida’s Summer Festival continues until August 1, 2009.
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