UK Verdict - Play
Karl Hendryk, a brilliant professor, attends to his wife Anya, an invalid suffering from a progressive disease. When Karl's cousin Lisa moves in to assist in caring for Anya, tensions rise and feelings are quick to develop.
Love isn’t just glamour, desire, sex appeal – all the things you young people are so sure it is. That’s nature’s start of the whole business. It’s the showy flower, if you like. But love’s the root. Underground, out of sight, nothing much to look at, but it’s where the life is.
More about this story
Karl Hendryk, a brilliant professor who, with his wife and her cousin, have fled persecution in their homeland to find themselves ensconced in London. The play concerns itself with the relationships the professor has with the women in his life. His wife, Anya, who is suffering from a progressively debilitating disease, her cousin and carer, Lisa, and Helen Rollander, a spoiled student who takes up private lessons with the professor.
It satisfied me completely. I still think it is the best play I have written, with the exception of Witness for the Prosecution.
Not a murder mystery or a whodunnit but a profound and thoughtful piece that deals with the human experience. Delving deeply into the psychology of relationships and moral philosophy, this is the story of a misguided idealist who loves so intensely it becomes ultimately destructive and unattainable.
One of only a few Christie plays written directly for the stage and not adapted from an underlying story, Verdict opened in the West End at the Strand Theatre in May 1958.
Buy Verdict - Play
Script: Acting edition
