“The Height of the Storm” by Florian Zellor at Wyndham's Theatre centers the complexities of the life of a man with dementia after losing his lifelong companion, with always gentle and misty melancholy that doesn’t explicitly reveal the family deterioration, but invites the audience to delve into the entanglement of Andre’s memory through flashbacks and the emotional bonding between the couple. With 95 per cent realism, the lighting, sound, setting and performance would tenderly pack the audience a emotional punch. 

The acting is naturalistic upon a symbolic text: Jonathan Pryce is sometimes unhinged, forgetful, sometimes fierce, petulant, and sometimes metaphysically witty. Whenever a truth-suggesting element was introduced, another event will insert and move the plot on, such as Madeleine breaking in when Andre asked about the nursing house and Andre changing subject to storm when Anne discovered his scandal, giving audience a sense of plot intertwining and obscuring. When Andre was isolated from conversations, he would appear vexed and deliver the speech awkwardly, which might resonate with older audience of one’s tardiness in aging. When Madeleine invited the woman to have a cup of tea, he built up nervousness and anxiety by facial expressions till choked interjection ‘I’m here’ and pointed at each furniture to prove his opposition and show dominance, but his words seem to disappear into the void. With the following pause and blackout, despair and hopelessness of aging is emphasized in his intermittent voice. When the woman he had intercourse with came into his house and blended in with his daughter Anne, he simply stood in his corner, started laughing, sometimes murmured and sometimes questioned potently ‘what is my position’, resembling a stubborn child trying to find his precious toy and further contributing to his characterization of a cantankerous oldster. Though he was rocked with misery with shaky stammer while hearing the woman’s visit, her inevitable arrival and entanglement reminds the audience of ‘an unescapable nightmare’. 

In another aspect, Andre is indulged in a tangible world his memory created, so he would appear omniscient in certain moments besides normality. By pointing out ‘people who try to understand things are morons’, ‘You think people are dead, but it’s not always the case’, he is provoking audience’s thinking about the whether the play is a play within his mind, suggesting the theme that after a lifetime together, a tangible memory remains. The emotional bonding is also denoted in stance and movement of Andre: he is passively aggressive towards Paul, the outsider, relatively open towards his daughters and completely reassured before Madeleine, with legs separating and relaxed cadence. 

Contrary to him, Madeleine and the daughters are more pragmatic and restrained. One attribution might be the daughters stay in reality and Madeleine keeps the supportive image so firm in Andre’s mind that the perception of her restores that. The restrain of emotion is shown in Anne hiding grief and tears in ‘it’s the onions’ and her hesitation in telling Elise her apprehension, and in Elise when she bitterly smiled when Andre only listened to her with half an ear and them both uttering ‘everything is fine’ when they had a fight. The daughters were trying to keep the personal notes going. Madeleine, with a defined face, is always collected and glamorous when facing Andre and speak in a reassured and soothing voice, giving audience a sense of security. When peeling the mushrooms, she is stripping off layers of Andre’s disillusionment and imagination, which is a incomparable motif throughout the performance. In the last scene, she held Andre’s hand, smiled like an omniscient angel, and speaking in a reassured way ‘I’ll always be here’, symbolizing the non-verifiable existence of people even though they are gone physically. 

The setting of the play is realistic and ingenious. Before the play, a translucent curtain that covered the stage presents a bare tree with bunch of branches on it, which could be interpreted as a symbol of the intertwined nerves and thoughts inside Andre’s brain. Reciprocal with this design, the window is broken and trees outside the windows are bare, which literally suggests what he sees is broken.The overall hue of wall paper is shallow blue, interplaying with the slightly melancholy tone in the play. The kitchen clutter is neat but not clean, representing the house falling into a stage of disrepair. The books high on the shelf suggests that this was once a hopeful house while the extremely high ceiling reflects the panic and emptiness inside the old man - how could he cope with the life alone? There are four chairs around the table: the one on stage right is for strangers like the woman.However, it is occupied extensively by Andre at last, implying him becomes a stranger to himself when his disillusionment is stripped off at denouement.  Also, there are not a single clock, calendar or time-indicating object in the house. This is relatively unrealistic but it makes sense in this play since the house can be a visualization of Andre’s mind, and this element suggests that time is fuzzy and unclear for Andre.

The lighting is naturalistic throughout, as if the lights are coming outside the window. It is also seen as a reflection of Andre’s mood. Whenever he gets excited or Madeleine came, the lights would go brighter and warmer. After seeing the condolence card from the flowers that publicize Madeleine’s death, house lights darkened the scene and represent the low ebb of Andre.Further, to distinguish his imagination from the reality, the light on him would go dim when he reminisces or imagines and when he participates in the conversation, the shadow would fade.Most importantly, the light enabled Madeleine to fade to a semi-transparent state but not totally invisible as the play ended, fitting with her line ‘I’ll always be here’ and accomplishing the last emotional punch.

The designer employed minimalism in sound effects, as the transition music is consisted of a soft sad violin in a minor key, consistent with nostalgic and repressive mood. Ambience sounds from the audience consists of rest of the play, and the designer’s intention was probably to highlight the performance. For costume, Andre changed from grey shirt to black shirts as ‘situation worsens’ and Madeleine wears a cozy blue jacket, which somehow let her blend in with the color of wallpaper.The woman was dressed in a red and white spotted skirt, bring in a flirting, dangerous and troublesome tone. 

As Jonathan Pryce states, ‘‘the audience is another cast member who’s there trying to work it out with you.’ The implicit design elements, performance style and plot made the play much more compelling than ones dependent on artful narratives, and give the audience a sense of ‘understanding it when it is being performed’ with endless aftertaste. It is not only a play dealing with crisis of oldsters, but more of a play where compassion is found in melancholy, and love is found in lost.