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The thought of seeing, let alone reviewing Mrs Klein (Cottlesloe, National Theatre) for this journal was daunting. With just my MEd in counselling, would I catch the general drift or be asking friends searching questions in the interval, while camouflaging my ignorance?
‘Have you seen the breast?’ was the first question I was asked while greeting my friends before the show. Indeed I had. And strangely comforting it was too. The detail from Lucien Freud's Girl with a White Dog of a precise, swollen breast, chosen as the pictorial image for the play's poster, was unambiguous - as I was praying the play was about to be.
The set was Melanie Klein's London consulting rooms: bookcases, arm-chair, sofa, drinks cabinet, desk and Persian carpets-in two words, cosy but professional. Against this back-drop a precise episode in Klein's life is brought to life: Paula Heimann establishing herself as devotee and analysand, while Melitta (Klein) Schmideberg attempts to acquaint her mother with the reason for Hans's (Melitta's brother) death and walks out of Klein's life for good.
As the play starts there is a peculiar dislocation. It is quite clear who is Mrs Klein and who is Paula; the one talks while the other listens - the general pattern of their relationship throughout the play (until the very, very end). Within moments Mrs Klein is crying. She holds out her hand to Paula. Paula takes it and she gradually stops crying and says, ‘I think that's it until next time’. And for a moment you wonder who is analysing whom? And if this is going to be a tricky evening after all.
Shortly after this Klein admits that she is not sleeping too well, ‘No dreams, which is unusual for me. Normally, I'm an active, colourful dreamer. Now each night the show is cancelled’- a line not particularly funny on the page, but timed and delivered in such a way that the audience were clearly expected to laugh - which they did.
More lines like this and it became apparent that Mrs Klein was a rather dotty old lady