The Doctor, by Robert Icke (Duke of York’s Theatre, London)

Director and writer: Robert Icke. Review by Ruth Tod.

This brilliant play exposed some of my worst fears about the future of human beings. The story turns round a well-known, highly successful doctor trying to save the life of a fourteen-year-old, who has contracted sepsis after a failed, self-administered abortion.

The girl is dying. Her parents are flying back from holiday, too late to see her. A Roman Catholic priest storms in, with instructions from the parents to administer the last rites. The doctor refuses to let him go to the child, on the grounds that she should be kept as calm as possible, which means no visitors. The priest adopts a threatening stance. The doctor remains adamant. The child dies.

What follows is a gradual unveiling of emotion and experience. In tears of rage, the child’s father screams that his daughter will burn in hell forever, since she has not been forgiven. The doctor refuses to apologise: her only concern is care of the patient. The father goes off to spread the story on social media. Eventually the doctor is crushed at a television debate, at which she is attacked on all sides. Christian anti-abortionists attack her for being Jewish and not understanding, for condoning the abortion, or even botching it herself. She is also criticised for being racist towards the black priest, for thinking she is superior and for using a deeply offensive word that we are not allowed to hear. She is struck off the medical register, and denied the chance to show she is a compassionate, skilled medic, daughter of the holocaust, in pain like everyone else.

Many nuances are played out, all connected to the central theme. It takes another Jewish doctor to remind us that categorising one another, and failing to see our common humanity, opens the doors to fascism. Towards the end the priest returns without his dog collar, and explains that he was fulfilling his role as priest, just as she was fulfilling hers as doctor. Together they acknowledge their mutual sadness at the way their roles and beliefs have divided them.

What struck me most about this story is the power of strongly-held beliefs to uphold our sense of identity and security, and thus divide us. At times, the play perhaps exaggerates to make its point. Shock waves went round the theatre as we saw the girl’s father trembling with rage. In the TV interview the black interviewers imply she was trampling on them just as slave traders had done. They accuse her of not standing in their shoes. The doctor, too, clings to her belief about what was right and best for her patient. No one stood in her shoes.

In the hands of the media, each of them is trapped in a ‘group’ that defined and divided them. The process blinds people to the reality that each of us is a whole, vulnerable, amazing human being. It is left to the priest to humbly imply that, when we expand our horizons, we discover a bigger, more inclusive picture, in which everyone’s experience and perspective enriches us all.

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