Emotional role ends on a high

Simon Stephens had initially intended the leading role in his new play to be a man, but he was persuaded by National Theatre artistic director Nick Hytner to write the leading role for a woman.

Stephens decided to read Euripides's plays before he began writing.

His play is a series of two-handed encounters in the manner of David Mamet's Edmund, though, unlike Edmund, Harper's trajectory is not downward and has an unexpected upbeat ending.

Harper Regan, a big emotional role that any actress would die for, leads a life of regret, fear and guilt.

Her husband was arrested for taking pictures of pubescent children. He is on a register for sex offenders and out of work. She wants to believe that he is innocent.

She is employed by a weird boss who won't give her leave to visit her dying father. She goes anyway, not telling either her husband or her teenage daughter where she has gone, leaving them to fret.

The action moves from Uxbridge to Manchester, where she takes a fancy to a black youth. She has a chat with a young nurse in a hospital corridor and is propositioned by a journalist in a pub. She has sex with a stranger in an up-market hotel and a confrontation with her estranged mother.

It is surprising that Stephens, a professed atheist, should end his play on a Christian note of redemption, which Harper achieves through love, truth and confession.

The play, deftly directed by Marianne Elliott and cleverly set by Hildegard Bechtler, is worth seeing for Leslie Sharp's excellent performance.

Her acting is so richly varied and so powerful in scene after scene - she is hardly ever off the stage - that it is disconcerting to find that the final moments are given over entirely to the husband rather than her.

There are neat and telling cameos by Michael Mears as the unnerving boss, Jack Deam as the anti-semitic, coke-snorting journalist, Brian Capron as the friendly stranger and Susan Brown as the misjudged mother.

It would now be fascinating to see Sharp in one of Euripides's tragedies.

Plays until May 15. Box office: (020) 7452-3000.

ROBERT TANITCH