Clare Higgins
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Clare Higgins, currently at the National Theatre in
Major Barbara, will stay on there in the fall to play Jocasta to Ralph Fiennes' Oedipus in Jonathan Kent's forthcoming Olivier auditorium production of
Oedipus Rex. The Sophocles tragedy, in a version by Frank McGuinness, will open in early October.
The Greeks are no stranger to Higgins, who last worked with director Kent on a 2004 Donmar revival of
Hecuba. Nor is the illicit lust traveled by
Oedipus exactly alien territory to this actress either: her 2006 Donmar run in
Phaedra cast her as a woman in love (or lust) with her own stepson.
Higgins is currently playing Lady Britomart in the Shaw play through June and will then partner Simon Russell Beale in an hour-long Harold Pinter piece,
A Slight Ache, before turning her attentions to
Oedipus. A three-time Olivier Award winner her other credits include
Sweet Bird of Youth, Vincent In Brixton, The Children's Hour and
The Night of the Iguana.