Writer and Director: Alexander Zeldin
Almost unbearably tender comes Alexander Zeldin’s new play, Care, about the end of life and the indignities that accompany it. The Young Vic’s space has been turned into a cavernous care home, with faded yellow chequered walls that do little to dispel the otherwise institutional surroundings. Nondescript chairs and low tables are scattered in the communal room, dull paintings hang on the walls, and as the audience takes its seats, one old woman slouches in her chair, caught in her own world. It’s unerringly and depressingly familiar.
However, Care centres on another woman, Joan, who has just arrived at the care home. She’s recovering from a broken hip and only expects to be there for a few weeks until she can return to her daughter’s house. Aloof, she doesn’t want to make friends with the other residents, who, to her, are less well and less clear-headed than she is. She arrives in her wheelchair when the care assistant, Hazel, is leading an activity, trying to encourage the residents to take part in a conversation about travel. Hazel’s efforts are so condescending that it’s no wonder Joan dismissively rolls her eyes.
Joan’s daughter, Lynn, hasn’t told her that her stay in the care home is to be permanent, but the assistants are aware, perpetually dodging the questions that Joan asks them. Also, in the know, but coming from instinct rather than any information that has come her way, is the nymphomaniacal Simone (Hayley Carmichael), who oddly, although satisfyingly, becomes Joan’s best friend. The other residents are often confused, their minds slipping into pasts that they can’t escape from.
Linda Basset is heartbreakingly vulnerable as Joan, who is basically a prisoner in the home where the doors to the outside are locked. Initially, she’s a formidable figure, erect in her chair while the others slump dejectedly, but occasionally, she lets her guard down and laughs at Simone’s smutty jokes, and occasionally her mind lets her down as she forgets things and as time moves in different ways. Her portrayal of the betrayed Joan, betrayed by her body, betrayed by her family, is a tour de force performance; she’s one of Britain’s finest actors. In a moment of razor-sharp lucidity, she snaps at Hazel, “I sold my home to be here!”
However, at 76 years of age, she is not the oldest actor on stage. Ann Mitchell, 87, looking elegant in her kaftan and drop earrings, is Agnes, who constantly touches her face. Her tears when she hears singing are devastating. Richard Durden, 82, brings an old-school charm to John, the man who says little, trapped within the memories of his wife. Corralling them all is the overworked and underpaid kind Hazel (a tremendously real Llewella Gideon).
While Care could be seen as an attack on the Government’s role in overseeing an efficient and humane care system, Zeldin wears his politics lightly. There are mentions of budget cuts, and the flickering lights could symbolise how the care system and the NHS are woefully underfunded, but Zeldin is more interested in demonstrating how, with even the best will in the world, such institutions strip away old people’s agency and freedoms.
One of the best plays to portray this closing down of life was the short last section of Caryl Churchill’s 2015 Here We Go, where one man’s life is reduced to getting out of and then back into his bed, a carer helping him dress and then undress again. Its lack of dialogue and fading light have endured for many viewers despite its relatively brief running time. Care, on the other hand, while sharing similarities with Here You Go, lasts for an uninterrupted 130 minutes. And yet it never feels too long.
Perhaps there’s a little too much focus on Joan’s family, but Zeldin also wants to show how ageing and death affect a younger generation. However, their stories, despite strong performances by the actors playing Joan’s daughter and grandsons, seem superfluous to Joan’s incremental decline.
The care home is authentically designed by Rosanna Vize, while James Farncombe’s lighting design is subtle, but at one point, the brightness outside the facility doors is crushingly bright as opposed to the unending dusk inside.
Runs until 11 July 2026
