Juliet Stevenson’s performance as a top ranking concert violinist struck down by multiple sclerosis and reluctantly in therapy, is a tour de force.

Her partnership with Henry Goodman as the psychiatrist is mesmerising.

The actual psychiatric techniques are highly questionable from an ethical and medical standpoint, despite the fact that the playwright underwent intensive therapy himself – or perhaps he had an extremely unorthodox therapist.

But there’s a life story to be told in condensed form and shock tactics (ie short cuts) are perhaps excusable.

Stephanie Abrahams goes to see Dr Feldmann at the suggestion of her husband, composer David Lebermann, who we never meet, but get to know through his wife and her therapist.

She is initially upbeat, positive that she is coping and is dismissive of the need for psychiatry.

She becomes increasingly hostile towards him and blocks every gentle attempt to uncover her deep unhappiness.

Feldmann is patient, silent for long periods, waiting for his patient to speak and tell him what he wants to know. It’s a superbly controlled performance by Goodman.

In contrast Stevenson does what she so good at – revealing extremes of raw emotion but never straying into the mawkish or melodramatic.

The therapy process reveals the driving force in her family background that propelled her to succeed in her chosen profession which was never just a job. It was her life, her ecstasy, a personal heaven she created.

Now her illness has destroyed it, and the enormity of the loss is what she refuses to come to terms with.

The two actors gradually put together the pieces of the jigsaw through a series of verbal battles, tears and tantru)ms, which while slightly predictable are so well played you eagerly await each new confrontation.

The play remains at Bath until March 21.