‘I’m incredibly lucky to have this role’
A play that ‘speaks to the times’ is coming to the Theatre Royal Bath in the form of The Doctor. JEFFREY DAVIES finds out more from Juliet Stevenson, who plays the title role
THE Theatre Royal Bath opens its autumn season next week with awardwinning director Robert Icke’s highly acclaimed production, The Doctor. It stars Olivier Award-winning actress Juliet Stevenson, who delivers what’s described as ‘one of the peak performances of the theatrical year’.
Before its appearance in the West End, the latest hit by ‘Britain’s best director’ is ‘a provocative, wonderfully upsetting whirlwind of gender, race and questions about identity. A devastating play for today’.
Adapted from Professor Bernhardi by Arthur Schnitzler, The Doctor marks Robert Icke and Juliet Stevenson’s third collaboration to transfer to the West End following Mary Stuart in 2018 and Hamlet in 2017. After opening at London’s Almeida Theatre, The Doctor headlined the Adelaide Festival in 2020 before its West End transfer was delayed because of the pandemic.
‘Brave, brilliant, devastating, provocative’. What makes it so, I asked Juliet Stevenson, who plays the titular role?
“The subject matter. It’s about an incident that takes place in a hospital between a doctor and priest. A mother fails a selfadministered abortion and my character, the doctor, has been trying to save her. But can’t. The priest arrives to administer the last rites but the doctor doesn’t let him in because she doesn’t want the girl to be terrified; she doesn’t know she’s dying,” the Essex-born actor told me.
“That incident then develops into an argument which goes absolutely viral. Many, many parties with a vested interest in the identities of the people involved have an opinion, and it becomes a huge sort of social media and public furore. It’s all about how it impacts on the doctor and on the hospital where she works. It’s a sort of melting pot of all the different interpretations of this event.”
So who does this somewhat harrowing and gritty play appeal to?
“It appeals to a wide demographic of audiences. Young people, old people. It’s about the society we are living in now.
It raises questions and it looks at some very, very volatile issues in our society at the moment, but in the safety of the theatre.
“Many people are living with a sense of alarm about how to speak about certain things without getting attacked or cancelled. Freedom of speech is becoming quite hard to hold on to in some ways and I think this play allows us all to discuss all these things in the safety of a theatre,” Juliet said.
“I play the Jewish doctor to whom all this happens. She is extremely bright and completely committed to medicine, someone who has worked all her life to get to the top. She has recently lost her partner – the love of her life – and she never, never brings her personal life in to work. She’s a very private person, tough and very disciplined. And she would say that she’s had to work twice as hard as the men to get to the top. But she doesn’t engage in that gender politics. She just wants to be the best possible doctor and wants her team to do as well as they can.”
Juliet’s performance has been heralded as ‘one of the peak performances of this theatrical year’. It must be very satisfying to be so rewarded and recognised, I remarked.
“Oh it’s amazing. It’s very encouraging and wonderful.
I’ve been incredibly lucky to have this role because it’s a most amazing part for a woman of my age; they are few and far between. It’s pretty unusual for a woman to be the centre of a play that’s about ideas and work and concepts. Women often play someone’s wife, someone’s partner, someone’s grandmother or somebody’s mother. It is not that often that they get the chance to drive the narrative,” Juliet said. An actress who takes great pride in the carefully chosen roles she plays, what attracted Juliet to this one?
“I committed to doing a play with Rob [Robert Icke] before he even wrote it. He wrote it for me to do with him. I love working with him so much. And we had an available slot at the Almeida Theatre at the time [in 2019]. He wrote it and sent it to me and I thought ‘whoa’. How lucky am I?” said Julia.
“In a way it’s a product of a collaboration because we’ve done several plays together before. And that’s my favourite thing, really; when we have creative collaboration which develops with writers or directors or actors.
“But normally a role like the one I’m playing now would attract me to it anyway. Also, my favourite thing in theatre is to do plays that are about now. Plays that really speak to the times we are living in, in all their complexity.”
Juliet is one of Britain’s leading actors. She has worked extensively for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the
National Theatre and the Royal Court, winning an Olivier Award for her performance in Death and the Maiden and being nominated on four other occasions. She last appeared at the Theatre Royal Bath sharing the roles of Mary Stuart and Elizabeth I with Lia Williams in Mary Stuart in 2018.
Was a career treading the boards inevitable for Juliet? Was it in her family’s DNA?
“Well, it was not at all obvious to me that it would work out. I had no confidence. I think I felt that deep instinct that that’s what I wanted to do when I got to be about 11 or 12 years old. It was no more likely than being an astronaut!
“I didn’t know any actors and I hadn’t really been brought up going to the theatre. I didn’t know anything about that world. I lived in army posts abroad with my Mum and Dad because my Dad was in the Army. But I did always long to be other people and to be telling stories about their big experiences,” Juliet recalled with a smile.
“I was going to go to university. I wouldn’t have dreamed of actually saying I was going to be an actor when I grow up. It was quite last minute that I got a place to read English and drama at Bristol University. Then suddenly, just a few months before I was due to go, I thought, what am I doing? Why am I doing an academic version of this? I don’t want to teach drama; I want to act. So I dropped the place and went to Rada.”
Acting is a very disciplined and dedicated profession. Routinely its players place themselves and their art and talent centre stage for all the world to see. What spurs Juliet on to want to work in that environment? For many people it would be a daunting prospect!
“Yes I know. Funny, isn’t it? I do it for audiences. Critics have an absolutely important job to do. They come and go. It’s the audiences (which are different every night) that actors think of because they are with us every
single night. So there’s always a slightly different conversation.
“Maybe audiences don’t realise just how much they can influence us. But the actors on stage are incredibly aware of them. You know, if they’re restless, absolutely spellbound, if they’re laughing or not sufficiently thinking. You can feel all the time how the audience is responding and that is such a magical thing. That’s what gets me out there.
“However, sometimes it does seem terrifying and I think, ‘oh no I don’t want to’. I might not be quite in the right frame of mind to go and stand on a highly brightly-lit stage in front of hundreds of people. But as soon as I get out there it feels right,” Juliet smiled.
Juliet says she enjoys working in all genres of acting: theatre, radio, television and film.
“Oh, I do. Actors are so lucky because they can do all of it. I’m so lucky to go from one to the other. When you’ve been filming for a long time you want to get up on stage. And then when you’ve been on stage and you’re exhausted after a long run, you can’t wait to get back to filming!”
Of course, Juliet is wellremembered for her role in the 1990 film Truly, Madly, Deeply, for which she was nominated for the Bafta Award for Best Actress in a leading role. Fond memories of making that British fantasy drama?
“Oh yes. I very vividly remember that. We didn’t know it was going to be a big hit when we were making it but we did know we were having an extraordinary time. We were all very close to each other. It was an extremely actor-friendly film set.
“I have very fond memories making it and of working with people like Alan Rickman and Anthony Minghella, who wrote and directed it,” Juliet said with a hint of nostalgia.
We didn’t know it was going to be a big hit when we were making it but we did know we were having an extraordinary time Juliet Stevenson on making Truly, Madly, Deeply
The Doctor is playing the Theatre Royal Bath from September 13 to 17. Tickets can be booked on 01225 448844 or online at www. theatreroyal.org.uk