'CARE' review — Alexander Zeldin confronts ageing and death in a powerfully naturalistic drama

Read our review of new play CARE, starring Linda Bassett, now in performances at the Young Vic to 11 July.

Summary

• Alexander Zeldin's play CARE premieres at the Young Vic
• The story centres on residents and staff of a care home
• Zeldin also directs an affecting naturalistic production
• The strong cast includes Linda Bassett and Rosie Cavaliero

While we’ve probably visited one, how many of us really know the mechanics of a care home? The labour that goes into the round-the-clock assistance its residents need, which gradually increases with their slow, inevitable deterioration, or how the long days between fleeting visits from family are filled? Unlike in some other cultures, it is normal (if cripplingly expensive) practice in the UK to deposit aging relatives into the professional care system, protecting ourselves from dealing with the process of their dying. In his latest play to get a UK premiere, which he himself directs, Alexander Zeldin blows open the doors to the care system and, over two hours of naturalistic scenes, makes us confront a reality we’d sooner shy away from.

It’s a reshaped and translated version of his 2023 French play Une Mort Dans La Famille, and shares DNA with his earlier Inequalities trilogy too, with its unflinching look at providing care in an environment of austerity. Slow, gritty and profoundly moving, it’s also something of a return to form for Zeldin, after his OTT modern twist on the Greek tragedy of Antigone, The Other Place.

At the heart of this story is Joan (Linda Bassett, by turns fragile and sharp), who believes she’s been moved into a care home temporarily following a fall. But her memory is going too, and daughter Lynn (a gently fraught Rosie Cavaliero) has enough on her plate, raising her two sons singlehandedly in the wake of their father’s death. Teenage Laurie (William Lawlor, all righteous rage), is sick of being surrounded by so much death, while little brother Robbie (newcomer Ethan Mahony, with terrific comic timing) is keen to keep the peace. Their scenes as a family are raw and real, with anguish masking tenderness – or vice versa.

But they’re not the only ones present in this care home, which is portrayed vividly on Rosanna Vize’s set. Harsh bright light illuminates a plain-looking room, with shabby armchairs arranged in a semi-circle, and hospital-style signage stuck on doors.

The facility houses all sorts of personalities, from Ann Mitchell’s well-to-do Agnes, who remembers living in “the Kenya” but not that her husband has passed away, to Hayley Carmichael’s waspishly funny Simone, a former sex worker whose bawdy humour brings light relief. There’s also Richard Durden’s John, whose desperation to love and feel seen sees him strip down to his nappy while making a delicate, misdirected advance on a fellow resident. And keeping them all clean and fed, while mentoring junior staff, is Llewella Gideon’s calm, kindly nurse Hazel – an inspiration.

But this is not a happy place. A sense of abandonment and confusion permeates, while stretched budgets mean the home is understaffed, and washes are limited to a strict six minutes and one wipe per resident. The play’s unhurried pace – two hours without an interval – captures not only the indignity of becoming infantalised again, through group singalongs and having to be taken to the loo, but the mundanity of so many hours spent sitting, staring and waiting for the final act.

It’s a form of endurance theatre for the audience – the kind that lodges a lump in your throat and doesn’t let up – but making us face dying and death in this way is arguably its own form of care.

CARE is at the Young Vic to 11 July. Book CARE tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: CARE (Photos by Johan Persson)