Multi-award winning actress Clare Higgins will continue her association with the National Theatre this autumn when she joins Ralph Fiennes in the revival of Oedipus scheduled to be presented in the Olivier theatre this October. Higgins, who is currently appearing at the Olivier as Lady Undershaft in Major Barbara, will be directed by Jonathan Kent in a Frank McGuinness version of Sophocles’s tragedy Oedipus Rex.
Higgins has been named Best Actress at the Laurence Olivier Awards three times in her career – in 1995 for Sweet Bird Of Youth, 2003 for Vincent In Brixton and 2005 for Hecuba – the first two of these awards coming for National Theatre productions. Her other work at the South Bank venue includes The Secret Rapture, King Lear, Richard III and The Walls. Higgins’s recent West End credits include The Night Of The Iguana, opposite Woody Harrelson and Jenny Seagrove, and Death Of A Salesman, opposite Brian Dennehy.
This revival of Oedipus has been mooted since late 2006 when it was announced that Fiennes, who is currently starring in Yasmina Reza comedy God Of Carnage, would reunite with director Kent at the National. The pair had previously worked together at the Almeida Theatre Company, when Kent directed Fiennes in the title roles of Hamlet, Coriolanus and Richard II. They reprised their working relationship in 2006 when Kent directed Fiennes in Faith Healer at the Gate Theatre Dublin before transferring to Broadway.
Higgins previously worked with Kent on another Greek tragedy, the Donmar Warehouse production of Hecuba.
MA