Phèdre 2nd July 2009
Euroclassicist went to the London National Theatre last week – in Brussels. Thanks to the technology of NT Live, a performance of Racine’s Phèdre was broadcast direct to cinemas all around the UK and to other countries too. The leader in this technology has been the New York Metropolitan Opera which after being broadcast for many years on live radio across the USA and then to other countries has moved recently to the live relay of opera performance to cinemas. We saw Lucia di Lamermoor (Donizetti) recently in Brussels and it was almost like seeing a live performance. Would live theatre work as well?
Phèdre is Racine’s take on Euripides’ Hippolytus: serious French tragedy in strict alexandrines often thought to be encased in a rigid style of French classical acting. Was this the wisest choice to begin this season of live relays? The advantages are the presence of Helen Mirren in the cast as Phèdre. Dame Helen is a popular actor, well-known to the British public for her role as The Queen and in many film and television appearances (Prime Suspect, Calendar Girls). I first saw her play Cleopatra in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra when she was still a drama student. Her intensity, concentration and commitment to the role were ideally suited to the unrelenting pace of Racine’s drama. This was the second advantage to the choice of Phèdre. The two hours traffic of the drama (without a break) kept the audience pinned to the back of their seats as the tragedy unfolded. The rapport of the actors with audience was evident on the expression of their faces, which we could see in all the detail of HD vision in close up. This is something you cannot duplicate in the theatre: in the front row you see the actors close up but not the whole stage, further back you have a view of everything but not the close expressions.
The set was also well suited to the live transmission: a brilliant Greek blue sky, the suggestion of a Greek coast line or island. The cameras could occasionally catch the actors isolated against this blue background, which we knew was just a cyclorama at the back of the stage but which became for us a real outdoor sky with the Greek sunlight burning down on the characters intensifying the emotions they were feeling. The costumes were indeterminate, not the clichés of ancient Greek tragedy, not identifiably modern. This tragedy was neither French nor English, ancient nor modern, and though clearly Greek it served for a lot more.
The actors were well-served by crystal clear sound which made understanding easy, though without subtitles for the non-native speaker audience. Subtitles in English (like the surtitles at the opera) may be a possibility worth considering in the future. The English version was by Ted Hughes who is well-known as an English poet and who was in fact Poet Laureate until his death in 1998. Described as muscular free verse his version does not attempt to reproduce Racine’s alexandrines but concentrates on projecting the raw emotions of the characters in direct but heightened language. We have tickets for a live performance of the play later and will be able then to make a direct comparison between the two experiences. I shall try revisit Racine in French and Euripides in Greek before then to make a valid comparison.
Classicists in Europe may not have too many similar chances to see a play like this on a Greek theme, but when such things do occur it is well worth making an effort to go along and to encourage students to experience live acting and productions of this quality in an entirely new way. The relays of the New York Metropolitan Opera may well have productions of classically themed operas in the coming seasons.
Euroclassicist went to the London National Theatre last week – in Brussels. Thanks to the technology of NT Live, a performance of Racine’s Phèdre was broadcast direct to cinemas all around the UK and to other countries too. The leader in this technology has been the New York Metropolitan Opera which after being broadcast for many years on live radio across the USA and then to other countries has moved recently to the live relay of opera performance to cinemas. We saw Lucia di Lamermoor (Donizetti) recently in Brussels and it was almost like seeing a live performance. Would live theatre work as well?
Phèdre is Racine’s take on Euripides’ Hippolytus: serious French tragedy in strict alexandrines often thought to be encased in a rigid style of French classical acting. Was this the wisest choice to begin this season of live relays? The advantages are the presence of Helen Mirren in the cast as Phèdre. Dame Helen is a popular actor, well-known to the British public for her role as The Queen and in many film and television appearances (Prime Suspect, Calendar Girls). I first saw her play Cleopatra in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra when she was still a drama student. Her intensity, concentration and commitment to the role were ideally suited to the unrelenting pace of Racine’s drama. This was the second advantage to the choice of Phèdre. The two hours traffic of the drama (without a break) kept the audience pinned to the back of their seats as the tragedy unfolded. The rapport of the actors with audience was evident on the expression of their faces, which we could see in all the detail of HD vision in close up. This is something you cannot duplicate in the theatre: in the front row you see the actors close up but not the whole stage, further back you have a view of everything but not the close expressions.
The set was also well suited to the live transmission: a brilliant Greek blue sky, the suggestion of a Greek coast line or island. The cameras could occasionally catch the actors isolated against this blue background, which we knew was just a cyclorama at the back of the stage but which became for us a real outdoor sky with the Greek sunlight burning down on the characters intensifying the emotions they were feeling. The costumes were indeterminate, not the clichés of ancient Greek tragedy, not identifiably modern. This tragedy was neither French nor English, ancient nor modern, and though clearly Greek it served for a lot more.
The actors were well-served by crystal clear sound which made understanding easy, though without subtitles for the non-native speaker audience. Subtitles in English (like the surtitles at the opera) may be a possibility worth considering in the future. The English version was by Ted Hughes who is well-known as an English poet and who was in fact Poet Laureate until his death in 1998. Described as muscular free verse his version does not attempt to reproduce Racine’s alexandrines but concentrates on projecting the raw emotions of the characters in direct but heightened language. We have tickets for a live performance of the play later and will be able then to make a direct comparison between the two experiences. I shall try revisit Racine in French and Euripides in Greek before then to make a valid comparison.
Classicists in Europe may not have too many similar chances to see a play like this on a Greek theme, but when such things do occur it is well worth making an effort to go along and to encourage students to experience live acting and productions of this quality in an entirely new way. The relays of the New York Metropolitan Opera may well have productions of classically themed operas in the coming seasons.
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