Bryony Lavery’s  “Frozen” was impressive at its debut in 1998 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, and takes on even more significance at its revival by director Bill Alexander at the National.  It bravely tackles the subject of pedophilia, much in the news in Britain because of the controversial series on the subject being aired by the BBC.  In the central role of Nancy, the mother of a ten-year-old girl who disappears when she goes to visit her grandmother, Anita Dobson impressively portrays the grieving mother’s emotional journey from the initial shock, to grief as she asserts her daughter is alive, to stoic acceptance of the fact, when the body is discovered, that she was sexually assaulted and killed. After twenty-one years, can Nancy forgive the murderer? .

The play begins as a series of spotlighted monologues by Nancy, by the killer, Ralph (Tom Georgeson), and by criminal psychologist Agnetha (Josie Lawrence).  Then the monologues become related, as this compelling drama moves to scenes between the psychologist and Ralph, the psychologist and the mother, the mother and her surviving daughter, and in the most powerful confrontation, the mother and the murderer.

For serial killer Ralph, the most difficult character both to conceive and for Mr. Georgeson to act, as he does convincingly, the playwright has devised dialogue that is revealing: chilling, matter of fact, organized, proudly displaying his collection of porn videos, and suggesting internal chaos beneath the cool exterior.  Ms. Lawrence ably humanizes Agnetha, who believes the criminal brain is abnormal: “the difference between a crime of evil and a crime of illness is the difference between a sin and a symptom,” she says.