The Height of the Storm.

The Height of the Storm
Richmond Theatre

Somebody has died. There are flowers. The bereaved daughters are rallying round offering support to the surviving partner, their father. But then their mother appears from the vegetable garden and it is she who needs the counselling and it is the father who they mourn. Or maybe neither parent has really died and what we are watching is the struggle of people to cope when the once intellectually powerful faculties begin to succumb to the ravages of dementia?

What is the reality and what are the imaginings? Is the question to be resolved and does it matter if it is? The tension is maintained to the end in this astonishing, thoughtful drama. We explore age, marriage, loyalty, gender, generational differences, the battle of the sexes, the Pinteresque  presence of unexpected visitors and much more in this extraordinary play by Florian Zeller. The translation by Christopher Hampton is idiomatically excellent and Jonathan Pryce and Eileen Atkins are pitch perfect.