Synopsis Racine, the French Shakespeare, tells the tale of tragic love. Passion overpowers reason for Phedre, who has fallen lustfully in love with her stepson. Her shameless attraction is forbidden, incestuous, unstoppable. The drama that unfolds is a delicate balance of poetic beauty and tragedy. Running time 2 hours with no interval
Dame Helen Mirren returned to the stage last night (11 June 2009, previews from 4 June) for the first time since winning the Best Actress Oscar for the 2006 film The Queen in order to take the title role in Greek tragedy Phedre.
The production also brings Mirren back to the National Theatre, where she made her last stage appearance, six years ago, in Howard Davies’ 2003 production of Eugene O’Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra. Phedre, directed by NT artistic director Nicholas Hytner, runs in rep in the NT Lyttelton until 27 August 2009. On 25 June, it makes history as the first production to be broadcast live to more than 100 venues around the world, including 50 cinema screens across the UK – as part of the new NT Live initiative (See News, 19 May 2009).
Jean Racine’s 1677 play, translated from the French by Ted Hughes, is based on the Greek myth about the queen who falls passionately in love with her stepson Hippolytus in her husband Theseus’ absence. Mirren follows in the footsteps of other famous Phedres including Glenda Jackson, Diana Rigg and, most recently at the Donmar Warehouse in 2006, Clare Higgins.
The majority of overnight critics welcomed Mirren back to the stage with a slew of four-star reviews this morning. Her Phedre, they said, is “hugely intelligent”, “hauntingly memorable” and “forceful”: it’s a “class act from a classy actress” who is undoubtedly “in her prime”. Nevertheless, the production avoids being a mere star vehicle for Mirren by being “impeccably cast” throughout, from Dominic Cooper’s “graceful, noble” Hippolytus to Stanley Townsend’s “big, brutal” Theseus and Margaret Tyzack’s “comic” Oenone.
Whatsonstage.com’s own Michael Coveney’s one-star verdict that Racine is lost in English translation, whatever – “it’s nobody’s fault, really, but it just doesn’t work” – is at striking odds with other critics who felt that Nicholas Hytner’s “almost unerringly fine” production of Ted Hughes’ “throbbingly alive” version proves just the opposite.
Michael Coveney on Whatsonstage.com (one star) – “It’s a funny thing, Racine in English, and it’s nobody’s fault, really, but it just doesn’t work ... Nicholas Hytner reverts to the 1998 translation by Ted Hughes in which Diana Rigg appeared at the Almeida and in the West End. It’s very good in its way but it’s not Racine. The verse is free form, with occasional pentameters and it’s brutish rather than stately and grand ... Helen Mirren is covered in purple veils and moves with deliberate languor and self-disgust. ‘I stink of incest and deceit,’ she says, admitting she has no more room for any more crimes. That’s simply not what she seems to embody ... We don’t see her boiling up or melting down, which is what happens in the play proper. This is an artistic decision, and it sells both Racine and Mirren rather short. John Shrapnel lends expressive weight as the counsellor Theramene describing the unnatural accident that precipitates the final disaster. The performance is given without an interval and runs for over two hours. It’s all very decorous and unmoving ... But what should have been a triumph for Dame Helen does not really challenge memories of Diana Rigg and, especially, Glenda Jackson, in the same title role.”
Simon Edge in the Daily Express (four stars) – “The title role is a magnificent one for a mature actress, like a French equivalent of Shakespeare’s Cleopatra. If Helen Mirren doesn’t dominate the evening, that’s only because Nicholas Hytner’s modern-dress production – two riveting hours with no interval – is impeccably cast across the board. Cooper first appears in designer Bob Crowley’s sun-drenched, polished-concrete palace in bare feet and rolled-up jeans, as if he has stepped off the beach in Mamma Mia!. A study in controlled, proud decency, he perfectly grasps the Ancient Greek ethos of duty even in the face of death. It helps that he has the kind of smouldering looks any stepmother might fall for. Stanley Townsend is a bruising hulk of a king ... Margaret Tyzack ... is a wonderful and even comic Oenone. Devious and ferocious, she is the Nanny who doesn’t know best. Alongside such colleagues, Mirren does not attempt to hog the limelight. But it’s a hugely intelligent performance, catching every throe of Phèdre’s internal battle between passion and decency ... She creates hauntingly memorable moments ... Hytner’s production is a rare, brilliant treat, showing that you really can do the French national playwright in English.”
Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail(four stars) – “Dame Helen is good ... A class act from a classy actress. She is not the only star of this cerebral, beautifully staged show. The other is the late Ted Hughes for writing such a haunting version of Racine's play ... The description of Hippolytus' demise, as delivered by Theramene, is a prolonged glory of the most high-flown writing. John Shrapnel delivers this speech with appalled totality, made all the more theatrical by the fact that until this point his has been a bit of a non-part ... Stanley Townsend's first entrance as Theseus has maybe a little too much of the Yasser Arafat about it (lose the ponytail and semi-military dress, Stan) and his Irish accent proves a distraction. But this is definitely a Theseus who has seen a lot of life ... I did not feel purged at the end of Phedre, but this two-hour show (no interval) is admirably serious in its ambition. It also gives us a fine actress in her prime.”
Benedict Nightingale in The Times (four stars) - “Nicholas Hytner’s modern-dress revival is almost unerringly fine, Ted Hughes’ translation simple yet bold and Bob Crowley’s set apt … Stanley Townsend’s performance (is) a big, brutal warlord with a face like a fist and a voice like a medieval canon … I’ve never seen a Theseus who exuded such strength, authority, outrage and danger. As the wronged Hippolytus himself, Dominic Cooper is what his secret love, Ruth Negga’s Aricia, says he is: strong, graceful, noble, proud. There are also excellent performances from the confidants, with John Shrapnel vividly evoking the young man’s hideous death and a doughty Margaret Tyzack grimly persuading Phèdre to tell destructive lies. But from the moment Helen Mirren crept onstage in a parody burka that veiled and swathed her entirely in purple, then crept out of it, an ashen moth desperate to stay in its cocoon, it was her evening ... By the end both passion and reason have gone. A beautiful Phedre has been boiled dry.”
Michael Billington in the Guardian(four stars) - “The strength of Hytner's production is Phèdre herself, in Helen Mirren's forceful performance…Mirren gives us a real woman poleaxed by passion… Dominic Cooper's Hippolytus combines vocal incisiveness with a visible horror of his stepmother's wayward desire. Stanley Townsend as Theseus, the false news of whose death precipitates the tragedy, is a figure of burly power who might plausibly have slayed the Minotaur and bedded legions of women. And John Shrapnel is riveting as Theramene, Hippolytus' counsellor, and invests his long speech describing his protege's death with an incendiary rage. At times the quest for psychological realism is pushed a little too far: Margaret Tyzack is a shade too ironic as Phèdre's nurse. I applaud Hytner treating the play as a compelling drama rather than an animated poetry recital, and it is wholly in keeping that at the end … this production reminds us it is also in the dramatic action.”
Henry Hitchings in the Evening Standard (four stars) - “Mirren evokes Phèdre’s conflicted identity with skittish command ... Dominic Cooper’s Hippolytus is an idler with a gift for lofty rhetoric. Cooper speaks with lambent clarity, but moves awkwardly - perhaps deliberately, since Theseus actually describes his character as ‘stiff’. Margaret Tyzack, hunched and doddery as Phèdre’s old nurse Oenone, does an impressive job of being both stern and humane, while Stanley Townsend’s ruggedly imposing Theseus bristles with menace, and Ruth Negga is gutsily innocent as Hippolytus’ secondary love interest Aricia. It’s Mirren, though, who anchors proceedings, and every time she steps on to Bob Crowley’s austere set of battered stone … one’s pulse sprints. This is only the third time a play by Racine has been staged at the National … Here in Hughes’ version his writing comes throbbingly alive.”
Charles Spencer in the Daily Telegraph (three stars) - “Actors don't just play great roles. Great roles play actors, testing their strengths, discovering their weaknesses. Rather to my surprise, the great Helen Mirren played Phèdre last night, and lost, though by a pretty narrow margin ... She never quite penetrates the dark heart of this great neo-classical drama ... She fails fully to capture the wildness and extremity of Phèdre's passion or the tormenting sense of shame that transforms love into a humiliating and ultimately fatal disease ... What's fatally lacking is a sense of tragic abandonment, the feeling that a great actress is laying everything she has before us, mind, heart, soul and guts. Ten years ago Diana Rigg delivered just that with a Phèdre that proved the peak of her career. Mirren's ... performance will grow if she dares more, exposes more, digs deeper. She needs to do all that by 25 June when her performance will be broadcast live, via satellite, to more than 60 cinemas around the world. Nicholas Hytner's production – in Ted Hughes' gutsy, free verse translation which will dismay those who favour Racine's formal Alexandrine couplets but which has undoubted punch – has plenty of good things elsewhere ... The finest performance comes from Margaret Tyzack ... And there's terrific work from Stanley Townsend ... If Mirren can only raise her game, this could become a great production rather than a merely good one."
It’s a funny thing, Racine in English, and it’s nobody’s fault, really, but it just doesn’t work. The pleasure of hearing those rolling alexandrines crash around your ears in the original rhythmic, and rhyming, verse, was evident in Declan Donnellan’s recent Cheek by Jowel revival of Andromaque, with French actors.
For this Phedre at the National, director Nicholas Hytner reverts to the 1998 translation by Ted Hughes in which Diana Rigg appeared at the Almeida and in the West End. It’s very good in its way but it’s not Racine. The verse is free form, with occasional pentameters and it’s brutish rather than stately and grand.
Hytner and designer Bob Crowley give it every chance to prosper in a sun-drenched Mediterranean setting of a stone white palace ravaged with bullet holes, open to the elements and beautifully lit by Paule Constable. This suggests the predicament of Phedre herself, descended from the Sun and fixing a return while languishing in the sexual death throes of an incestuous passion for her stepson Hippolytus.
Helen Mirren is covered in purple veils and moves with deliberate languor and self-disgust. “I stink of incest and deceit,” she says, admitting she has no more room for any more crimes. That’s simply not what she seems to embody. Her passion for Hippolytus, given half a green light when her husband Theseus (solidly played by a glaring Stanley Townsend) is reported missing, has already done its work: we don’t see her boiling up or melting down, which is what happens in the play proper.
This is an artistic decision, and it sells both Racine and Mirren rather short. Dominic Cooper’s Hippolytus is in love with Ruth Negga’s sweet-natured Aricia, a captive enemy of Theseus, and this gives the tragedy its added spice. Everything ends in tears, of course, and some folk are covered in blood; John Shrapnel lends expressive weight as the counsellor Theramene describing the unnatural accident that precipitates the final disaster.
The performance is given without an interval and runs for over two hours. It’s all very decorous and unmoving, with some good minor contributions from Wendy Morgan and Chipo Chung as courtly attendants. Margaret Tyzack is the loyal nurse Oenone. But what should have been a triumph for Dame Helen does not really challenge memories of Diana Rigg and, especially, Glenda Jackson, in the same title role.
I had been looking forward to this for several weeks and was disappointed in most aspects. The positives - the set is excellent and the lighting superb. However, the acting was generally wooden, diction frequently poor and lines inaudible. The wonderful Margaret Tyzak sounded as if struggling with badly fitting false teeth, Dominic West appeared bored and disengaged, Stanley Townsend seemed forced and uncomfortable. Helen Mirren's enthusiasm for her role was spasmodic. I hope I saw the production on an off-night but at £37.50 a ticket I think the audience deserved better. - Rebekkah
24 Aug 09
Stunningly designed by Bob Crowley and beautiful lit by Paule Constable combined to lead me to expect great things of this production directed by Nicholas Hytner. Alas it was not to be. Starting from the bottom then, Dominic Cooper may be Mr Hytner's darling of the moment, but sounding like Trigger from Only Fools and Horses he is not equipped to play a part that requires huge stage presence and a voice to match. Stanley Townsend, who does have the voice and who usually turns in a fine performance, seemed ill at ease as Theseus and in the penultimate scene, whilst listening to the towering John Shrapnel's Théramène's vivid description of the death of Hippolytus - brought on by Theseus' invocation to Neptune to punish his son, could have been listening to the football results instead! Helen Mirren, however, gives a finely balanced and controlled performance of a woman tortured by incestuous desires for her stepson and the anticipated impending doom that must surely follow. Margaret Tyzack ably supports. This was a flawed production then and I am surprised that the NT, having got Helen Mirren to commit to do the part, should have blown it this way? - rds
30 Jul 09
Unless my daughter achieves unexpected greatness, Helen Mirren will remain the most famous old girl of St. Bernard's High School, Westcliff. Surprisingly, her much anticipated return to the stage proves to be the weakest link in an otherwise brilliant ensemble. Her performace contained little variety of mood or expression, was far from word perfect and the only time it was truly believable was a deadly "I have a rival?" when she learned of Hippolytus' love for Aricia. Nick Hytner's production on an epic set makes sense of the complicated relationships and shifting claims to various crowns. Stanley Townsend's eventual entrance as Theseus unfortunately made me think of Demis Roussos, but he quickly dispelled that with a performance of power and authority, particularly when summoning Neptune's anger upon his son culminating is wretched grief at the result of his actions. John Shrapnel blazes with rage and indignation when describing Hippolytus' fate and Ruth Negga is affecting as the tragic, if distinctly Irish, Aricia. Clare Higgins was a magnificent Phedre at the Donmar; this is a better production despite Mirren's performance not coming close to those heights. - David Baxter
19 Jul 09
Utterly brilliant! Mirren and Tyzack couldn't be better and Dom more orange.
I loved every second,(except the visible mop head stuck below the corpse to make the bloody skid mark look even) - joesmith
06 Jul 09
I always think a Greek tragedy has been a success if you leave the theatre emotionally drained, and that was not the case here. As much as I admired the performances, design and staging, it left me rather cold. I think I like my Greek tragedy 'neat' (simply translated from the original). Here it's gone through 17th century French classical tradition before its modern English translation and what comes out the other end isn't really Greek tragedy at all. A touch like the recent Madame de Sade, too much of the play is commenting on what's happening off stage! Great production of a 250-year old play that doesn't really work for a modern audience. - Gareth James
02 Jul 09
I saw this last night in a very warm cinema in Tewkesbury. The only reasons I did not nod off completely was Margaret Tyzack's wonderful performance (she acted Helen Mirren of the stage/screen) and John Shrapnel particularly in his tour-de-force closing speech. They made the evening. This experiment of broadcasting live theatre around the world I would count as a total success and I look forward to more although I will be choosing my plays carefully. - Phil Aplin
27 Jun 09
How that turgidly bug-eyed Dominic Cooper with his pettish self admiration and dying-away diction has managed to make a career as a ladies' man on stage and screen will baffle me for eternity. He's about as dangerous as a dormouse; I wondered if Phedre wasn't simply pulling his leg - and ours. - Ingrid Himmelborg
25 Jun 09
I saw this production on 13th Jun 09 before reading any reviews. I was captivated from start to finish. The set and lighting were both stunning. The acting from all of the cast was superb. The only minor criticism I have is for Helen Mirren. At one point in the play the love for one of the other characters did not show through as much as it could have done. John Shrapnel's account of the final tragic event was very vivid. I don't often disagree with the professional critics. But this occasion I strongly disagree. No way is this a one star. A thrilling theatrical experience. Well done to the National Theatre. - Peter
19 Jun 09
I saw last night with my wife and a friend.
It was pretty awful - good things - some of the acting and the set - but otherwise - what's the point of it? No Drama when it's just hand wringing despair from everyone all the time from the start. Language nothing like as good as you expect from a great poet... Maybe 2 stars instead of 1 - but the WOS review is the one that got it right IMO.
Do I understand the person who gave it 5 stars correctly - he gave it 5 stars before even seeing it ?
- simon hastwell
19 Jun 09
I have seen this production and can conifdently recommend it.
I loved the staging, the bright sunlit stage next to sand and sky gave a real sense of location.
The performances were strong, in particular Dominic Cooper who never flinched from his horror at his step mothers lust for him, Margaret Tyzack who's nurse was both caring and replusive and in particular Helen Mirren who captivated my attention totally when she was on stage, a real tour de force. - Paul Wallis
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