Electra/Persona

by Benedict Andrews after Sophocles and Ingmar Bergman

seen at the National Theatre (Lyttleton) on 21 August 2026

Benedict Andrews has had the interesting idea of presenting a stripped down version of Sophocles's Electra (in which an impassioned daughter seeks vengeance for her father's murder by her mother) followed by a stage version of Ingmar Bergman's celebrated 1966 film Persona (in which an actress playing Electra has fled a performance of the play, has refused to speak, and is being cared for by a loquacious nurse). He directs Cate Blanchett and Nina Hoss who alternate the parts of Electra and Clytemnestra in the first half and the silent actress Elisabeth and the nurse Alma in the second half, with Ella Lily Hyland as Chrysothemis (Electra's sister) then Anna (the doctor treating Elisabeth), and Patrick Robinson as Aegisthus (Clytemnestra's lover) then Elisabeth's husband.

At the beginning the four actors enter in front of the front row of the audience and the two leads ask a member of the audience to toss a coin, with the rules that apply for determining first service in a tennis match; on this occasion Nina Hoss lost the call so Cate Blanchett could choose the roles and she chose to play Clytemnestra and Alma. Whether this ploy is in some way "fixed" so that a reasonable alteration of role playing can take place is an uncertain point; it will apparently not be possible consult the box office in order to arrange to see two performances with a guarantee that the roles will be reversed.

On a strikingly bare set designed by Magda Willi, consisting of a steep series of white stone steps covering the full width of the Lyttleton stage and leading apparently nowhere, and with a stainless steel hammer centrally placed and spotlit, the play Electra begins with Electra crawling up towards the hammer groaning in grief and anger, her desperate desire to avenge her father's murder unassuaged for years due to the absence of her brother Orestes. Her sister's appeals to reason appal and disgust her. When Clytemnestra appears the dreadful tangle of familial love, anger, hatred and resentment threatens to boil over: both women are implacable in their self-righteous justifications. 

In the absence of an actor taking the part of Orestes, the recognition scene between brother and sister is dispensed with, and Electra in some sense becomes Orestes, or assumes his character, in order to despatch Aegisthus when he arrives thinking to hear news of Orestes's death: unlike the formal arrangements of a Greek tragedy, the murder takes place on stage (and in a further departure from Sophocles, his death occurs before that of Clytemnestra). When "Orestes" confronts Clytemnestra (a scene drawn more from Aeschylus's version of the story) we might expect further butchery - but it is at this point that Electra inexplicably flees the stage through the auditorium; a curtain descends as if to deal with an unforeseen emergency and we are at the interval.

In Persona, the actress Elisabeth has been silent for some time, and her doctor assigns the nurse Alma to look after her; eventually they go to live in a seaside cottage, an arrangement which the doctor hopes will be restorative. But Elisabeth remains silent, while Alma talks and talks and talks. Elisabeth's features are projected from a hand-held video camera onto a large screen so that we can see that her perpetual silence is given subtle nuances by the smallest fleeting expressions on her face: it is a masterful piece of acting and a surprisingly resilient foil to the nurse's prolonged and at times desperate chatter as Alma deploys increasingly frantic methods to get Elisabeth to talk: only a direct physical threat leads to a distressed cry of alarm.

Is this juxtaposition a success? There are complex factors at work. We see actors choosing their parts in front of us, but then their performances are so intense and convincing that we perhaps "forget", in the usual way of audiences, that we are watching people who are acting, and we immerse ourselves in the presented dilemmas of the characters they are portraying. Then the performance inexplicably stops, and we never go back to it: we do not see the second murder nor do we have any idea of the consequences of this particular matricide (an issue not addressed in any surviving play by Sophocles, though it is the subject of surviving plays by Aeschylus and Euripides). Instead we see an intense and increasingly unhealthy relationship between a patient and her nurse, a reminder at one level that we are concerned with the trauma of an actress who was playing Electra when she fled the stage. But now we are watching an actress playing a traumatised actress, and another actress playing an increasingly vulnerable nurse.

Although the ostensible link between the two parts is that the actress we saw playing Electra did indeed leave the stage precipitously, and throughout the Persona section is almost entirely silent, there is perhaps a subliminal connection relating to the issue of trauma. For the Greeks, the Electra story was one episode in a blood feud within the Mycenaean royal family which lasted for generations, and clearly the character of Orestes suffers what we would call trauma in killing his mother, depicted in the form of the Furies pursuing him - and it is noteworthy that he is totally trapped since his father's murder cries out for vengeance, but so too does his mother's murder. Clearly there are traumas in Persona - Elisabeth's silence is a traumatic response, and Alma too has deeply repressed feelings, some of which are articulated in her long monologues. The questions of childbearing and maternal affection are raised both by Clytemnestra in Electra (famously she dreams of having given birth to a serpent when bearing Orestes) and by Alma in Persona (as she attempts to imagine Elisabeth's reasons for tearing her child's photograph in two) and these parts are taken by the same actress.

It's an intense experience: Greek tragedy is by its nature intense, and so too are most of Bergman's films, this one not the least. The two parts, though derived from theatrical and filmic works from centuries apart, do nevertheless make for a compelling if strange unity. Some of the power undoubtedly comes from the format which forces us to recognise that acting is taking place - and superb acting at that. Deep human emotions are being explored, but the theatricality of the process is being highlighted at the same time instead of being taken for granted, which is unusual but stimulating.

Cyrano de Bergerac (revisited)

by Edmond Rostand

seen last the Noel Coward Theatre on 19 August 2026

It was interesting to experience a second visit to this RSC production currently in London. In June I was in the Royal Circle, some distance from the stage and looking down on it (from excellent seats). This time I was in the fourth row of the Stalls, giving an entirely different exposure to the staging.

Since the play opened with a "warm up" for the audience we in the stalls were necessarily more involved from the start, and in general the theatrical experience was more involving at close quarters. Also, knowing in advance how the opening worked, it was less confusing at it turned out not to be essential to know who everyone was in order to enjoy the proceedings. (In June I had been a bit distracted by trying to work out who these characters were in relation to Cyrano who does not appear for some time.)

Adrian Lester's performance as Cyrano remained superlative and it was of course possible to notice more nuances in his delivery. It turned out to be well worth a second visit.

See my review for 22 June for more details on the production as a whole.

Atlantis

by Emily White

seen at the Minerva Theatre Chichester on 8 August 2026

In a co-production with Theatr Clwyd Guy Jones directs Vivien Parry as Gwen, Richard Elfyn as her husband Bryn, Catrin Aaron as their daughter Claire, Eirlys Lovell-Jones as their granddaughter Rhiannon, Alfie Llewellyn as their grandson Phillip and Sara Otung as Phillip's girlfriend and later wife Astrid in Emily White's accomplished play Atlantis, which deals with the impact of climate change on a beleaguered Welsh fishing village in the years from 2011 to 2039. There are three pairs of children variously taking the parts of young Rhiannon, young Phillip, and Phillip and Astrid's child (either David or Eleanor depending on the child performing: we saw Eleanor). 

Fairbourne, an imaginary place, is a small village surrounded by salt marshes. We see the beach - sand and pebbles strewn across the front of the acting area and partly covered by sun-bleached board walks - and the living room of the family: a versatile set designed by Frankie Bradshaw. Bryn is a fisherman; Gwen has often been absent while participating in various activist causes, most notably for her perhaps the long-running Greenham Common protest of the 1980s. They are bringing up their young grandchildren as Claire, their daughter and the children's mother, is swamped by her shift work in a care home. At the play's opening Gwen is telling folk stories to the youngsters, including those tales of kingdoms lost under the sea, but the adults have just become aware that their whole village is imperilled by the council's decision to abandon the modification of any sea defences even though sea levels are projected to drown the village within the next few years. Not only that, but the home owners will receive no compensation - and of course once the situation is publicised it is impossible for the homes to be sold.

Though we don't care to think closely about this, such a predicament will be widespread in Britain (let alone the rest of the world). When village activism brings reporters to Fairbourne, Bryn reels off a list of places likely to be affected, including major cities on river estuaries. The reporter superciliously points out that hard decisions must be made since resources will be too scarce and unaffordable to protect the entire coastline - but this is scant comfort for anyone about to lose their home and livelihood. The only concession the locals win is that the council will not force evictions by cutting off utility supplies.

Such issues could swamp a play with earnest rhetoric, but in Atlantis the wider picture is skilfully interwoven with the family drama, though we are witnessing a family with its own rich traditions of political awareness and engagement: Astrid, when she first gets to know them, is absolutely amazed and impressed, though later she becomes disenchanted. Likewise the family drama, with tensions between Bryn staunchly defending his own perceived rights often exasperated by Gwen who goes off saving the world, Claire almost overwhelmed by work, and the youngsters facing a very insecure future, could have become mawkish and melodramatic, but it never does. Bryn and Gwen have serious disagreements, but their bond can cope with the strain. Later, Rhiannon and Astrid have an excoriating argument about the issue of bringing children into the world, but with the long time frame of the play, we see that years later they manage a tacit if still somewhat frosty accommodation with one another. This is the stuff or "ordinary" family life portrayed in an unfussy style which makes it totally believable. The passage of time brings loss and illness, and some degree of bitterness and estrangement, all revealed with an understated poignancy in the midst of the encroaching environmental crisis.

All in all, this production manages the difficult feat of blending the widest ecological issues with an intimate family portrait without compromising either strand. The result is theatre doing what it does best: challenging and entertaining at once.

The Oresteia

by Simon Stone after Aeschylus and others

seen at the Bridge Theatre on 6 August 2026

Christopher Nolan's recent film The Odyssey has garnered critical acclaim, but also reservations (some of which are justifiable) about "authenticity" and interpretation. However, re-imagining classic myth and drama is inevitable as performance practices change and cultural and societal norms evolve. Hence for the Bridge Theatre Simon Stone has written and directed an Oresteia for our times, and it is a far more radical venture than anything attempted by Nolan. The essential outline of the traditional story - the catastrophic implosion of the family of Agamemnon - is here presented as the travails of an extremely modern and dysfunctional family: the time lines are given as running from 2016 to 2026. (Interestingly, the last time versions of The Oresteia were given professionally in London was in 2015: see my reviews of the Almeida and Globe productions.)

It may be useful to list the cast with their classic correspondences (a courtesy omitted by the program):

Marie-Louise Parker    -    Montie             (Clytemnestra)

David Morissey            -    Christopher     (Agamemnon)

Tom Glyn-Carney         -    Augie              (Orestes)

Rosie Sheehy               -   Alice                (Electra), and briefly her twin Isobel (Iphigenia)

Lloyd Hutchinson         -    Melville            (Menelaus), and also Lester a police inspector

John Macmillan            -   Jerome             (Aegisthus)

Archie Madekwe          -    Lorenzo           (presumably Pylades, imagined as Jerome's son)  

Alyth Ross                    -    Jenny and Letitia

Rakhee Thakrar           -    Chandra           (Cassandra)

Even the Almeida's modern-placed production used the familiar names and entangled the familial disasters with statecraft, but Stone's adaptation eschews the public sphere almost entirely by placing the Middleton family at one remove from political power. The brothers Christopher and Melville run an arms company which is inevitably supplying weapons to unsavoury states, but Christopher's business woes are more personal in that he has been embezzling company funds. Isobel, the rebellious but indulged child, has fallen in with protesters, while Alice, more socially awkward, remains at home with Augie.

Domestic tensions are already running high in 2016 as the family prepares for the twins' twenty-first birthday celebrations, and over the succeeding decade the cycle of vengeful murders plays out, leaving the hapless Augie in a frenzied and traumatised state: in the absence of the gods and the turning away from civic involvement there is no place for the healing of his mental state by the establishment of communal judgement such as is presented in the final play by Aeschylus. Rather, Augie is apparently sectioned and still damagingly haunted by his past actions, in a manic state perhaps inspired by the character's predicament in Euripides's play Orestes.

The Almeida's production focussed intensely in its first act on the sacrifice of Iphigenia, an episode only referred to in Aeschylus, partly no doubt to bring the full horror of that episode to the minds of an audience which may no longer have been familiar with the tale. At the Bridge the first act shows the tensions in the family at the point when Isobel is still alive, but not present, but there is an increasing sense that a disaster is waiting to happen, since so much family discord cannot possibly be dissipated. As the years pass we are witnesses of the later developments (ie, the murders), though the events are not presented in chronological order. There is an element of withholding information for dramatic effect which runs the risk of turning the whole affair into a thriller. In the most extreme case we hear of Isobel's death and its traumatic effect on her surviving relatives long before we actually witness its circumstances, and it is not clear that what we see can really account for all that has followed.

Lizzie Clachan provides an extraordinary set - a series of rooms in the Middleton's Kentish house on two levels, all enclosed by vast glass windows to create a huge box, rotating slowly as needed to reveal the different rooms. It's a visual style used in previous productions by Stone (I have seen his Yerma and Phaedra), and it perfectly reflects the suffocating claustrophobia in modern family life. But it has its costs. Because of the enclosed space the actors are all miked, and this leads to an unfortunate flatness of tone and occasional jarring noises if two people are too close to one another (for instance, when hugging - a rare event in this appalling family). Another signature feature of Stone's direction, the tendency for many characters to speak at once, makes it even harder to concentrate on what is actually being said when everything is flattened electronically. While it might be claimed that this reflects the realities of social life when no-one is particularly interested in what anyone else is saying, it is an extremely disconcerting experience when witnessed on stage where one expects cues to focus one's attention. (This was also a problem with Phaedra only slightly mitigated here by being used more sparingly).

Overall, after the disconcerting start, the production became more gripping as it settled into developing its plot rather than just introducing us rather bewilderingly to the characters. The cast was excellent, with a powerhouse performance by Marie-Louise Parker as Montie matched by David Morissey's already somewhat crushed Christopher and Tom Glynn-Carney's increasingly deranged Augie. Rosie Sheehy's Alice was an extraordinary study in social awkwardness and entirely credible resentment at being the non-favoured twin, reflecting Electra's degraded position in her mother's household after her father's death. There were cunning redeployments of Aeschylean themes and motifs: for example, Clytemnestra's blasphemous invitation to Agamemnon to walk on a purple carpet (which he finally agrees to) is transmuted to Montie's insistence that Christopher should eat some biscuits, wheedling in the face of his firm refusal since he is on a wellness diet. Providentially only Chandra, the Cassandra figure, eats the biscuits, which are poisoned, though they do not kill her. In the maelstrom of recrimination and revenge there was considerable scope for extremely mordant humour, an unexpected byproduct of the "relatable" setting. The character of Letitia (Augie's fiancée, not directly related to a classical forebear) was a fountain of modern entitlement.

I am increasingly unsure that the disrupted chronology, which required projected messages to inform us in which year various scenes belonged, really did the play any favours (a view shared by others with me). Sometimes these scenes looked as if they were flashbacks, and sometimes not, which added to the destabilising effect; it left Augie's final predicament unresolved, with Isobel's fate revealed as the last major scene even though it was almost the first thing to have happened. A dramatic ending when it could have been a dramatic beginning, it looked close to cheating. The material could certainly support a more straightforward presentation as its full power is not really dependant on cliffhangers.

It is exciting to see what directors and actors make of material that in its classic form is nearly 2500 years old; but for modernising I preferred the version presented by the Almeida.

 

Love's Labour's Lost

by William Shakespeare

seen in the gardens of Braboeuf Manor, Guildford on 25 July 2026

The Guildford Shakespeare Company and the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond have created joint open-air productions of both Love's Labour's Lost and Much Ado About Nothing for their summer seasons (quite usual for the GSC, but particularly apt for the Orange Tree, the auditorium for which is undergoing major renovations this summer). Tom Littler from the Orange Tree directs a cast of ten in the two plays, and he has devised ways to link them so that they appear to deal with the same characters before and after the Second World War. This is achieved by a few textual adjustments, but principally by assigning character names from each play to four couples and some assorted others. Thus the plays are linked more explicitly than in a similar exercise presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company eleven years ago (the RSC placed the plays on either side of the First World War and disposed the members of the cast differently).

In Love's Labour's Lost the four young male courtiers of the original are perfectly plausible as 1930's Oxbridge undergraduates (or perhaps they have recently graduated), their aspirations for living hopelessly out of touch with the world of real relationships and awkwardly insistent feelings. The visiting ladies soon scupper their idealistic fantasy of a three year retreat from feminine company, but the social comedy remains untouched almost until the end by the weightier matters of the real world. Even the lesser characters, decidedly from lower social strata, are ostensibly free from want or anxiety.

As in Much Ado (seen last week) James Sheldon gives a tremendously assured performance as Berowne/Benedick, a vital asset as these two characters (here presented as essentially the same person) must be convincing and charismatic for the plays to succeed as entertainment. The supporting cast manages the elaborate wordplay of Love's Labour's Lost with great panache, and often at dazzling speed, allowing us to be impressed by their mastery of the text rather than bamboozled by the now unfamiliar rhetorical wizardry.

The brittle make-believe world of the play is famously shattered in its concluding moments by the arrival of an unavoidably serious message for the Princess: the death of her father. The desperate and perhaps forlorn attempts of the young couples to retrieve something from this interruption by promises to revive their interest in one another after a suitable period of mourning, reflection and seeing to their new responsibilities is handled with due sobriety, and we the audience have some inkling that these four pairs of young people will have a "second chance" in the later Much Ado About Nothing.

The play ends with contrasting Spring and Winter songs concerning respectively the cuckoo and the owl. The text does not assign the songs to characters previously named; in this production Costard (here, an innkeeper) takes the lyrics for spring and Holofernes those for winter. At first they recited them, which had the curious effect of reminding me of reciting poetry in primary school classes, before they were repeated in song. I have seen productions in which the tunes for the two parts were utterly different, reflecting their different seasons, but here the same tune was used throughout. The overall effect was surprisingly poignant: the world of easy love-play was certainly giving way to something more serious.

Much Ado about Nothing

by William Shakespeare

seen in the gardens of Braboeuf Manor, Guildford on 18 July 2026

The Guildford Shakespeare Company and the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond have created joint open-air productions of both Love's Labour's Lost and Much Ado About Nothing for their summer seasons (quite usual for the GSC, but particularly apt for the Orange Tree, the auditorium for which is undergoing major renovations this summer). Tom Littler from the Orange Tree directs a cast of ten in the two plays, and he has devised ways to link them so that they appear to deal with the same characters before and after the Second World War. This is achieved by a few textual adjustments, but principally by assigning character names from each play to four couples and some assorted others. Thus the plays are linked more explicitly than in a similar exercise presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company eleven years ago (the RSC placed the plays on either side of the First World War and disposed the members of the cast differently).

By chance I have seen the "second" play first, and have thus watched the soldiers returning from the war, variously affected by its violence: Benedick Berowne suffers nightmares, while the affable Longeuville has become the treacherous John. But the linkings are a minor matter; the principal pleasure is to be gained from the excellence of the production of a fine play. Beatrice (Phoebe Pryce) and Benedick (James Sheldon) remain the dazzling sparring couple perfectly believable in the heady days of victory in the mid-1940s, while the plot to denigrate Hero (Joëlle Brabant) and humiliate Claudio (Chirag Benedict Lobo) unfolds around them in a milieu where mistrust could very easily develop due to the years-long parting of sweethearts. The comic village constabulary with the pompous Dogberry (Matt Pinches, doubling also as the villainous John) in charge are suitably re-imagined as members of the local home guard in a nod to Dad's Army.

In a corner of the extensive gardens of the former Guildford College of Law the setting was imagined to be a rural village pub festooned with victory bunting but apparently not much used during the war years. Great trees provided a magnificent backdrop and a vital sounding board, and also much needed shade for the actors in a matinee performance (the audience was less fortunate in this respect). Once again the GSC has provided a really enjoyable al fresco production of a Shakespeare play.

45 Years

adapted by Hannah Patterson from Andrew Haigh's film

seen at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester on 4 July 2026

Prasanna Puwanarajah directs Gabriel Byrne as Geoff, Geraldine James as Kate and Gillian Bevan as Lena in Hannah Patterson's adaptation of the film 45 Years which was written and directed by Andrew Haigh and released in 2015 (Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling played the couple while Geraldine James played Lena).

Geoff and Kate are about to celebrate their forty-fifth wedding anniversary, their ruby wedding celebrations having been cancelled due to Geoff's ill-health at the time. Theirs seems to be a marriage of long contentment and companionship, but a letter sent to Geoff throws an unexpected light on his past. He had told Kate of the girlfriend he had had before they met, and that she had died in a climbing accident when they were holidaying in the Alps, but there were evidently things that he had not said, which Kate now finds very painful to consider.

Over the course of the few days between the arrival of the letter and the celebratory party Kate must deal with catering arrangements and the well-meaning chatter of her friend Lena, all the while trying to come to terms with her new awareness of her husband's past, and her lack of certainty about what he might or might not have inadvertently or deliberately told her. In the meantime Geoff too has been knocked off balance by the news in the letter, and he struggles with his natural reticence, and perhaps his failing memory, to realise the pain he has caused.

The play is set solely in various rooms in their house with only the most minimal indication of which room the couple are in (set designed by James Cotterill); there is a clever indication of when Kate is in the loft. Indications that the house may be a bit rundown with age and their long residence perhaps mirror the fragility of Kate's and Geoff's relationship - there are persistent leaks from the rain outside, and a troublesome ballcock which Geoff eventually repairs. Only right at the end are we in the hall where the long-planned party takes place.

Conversation is mostly measured and muted, and the pattern of very short scenes of dialogue punctured by blackouts, very reminiscent of fades or scene-cuttings in film, is at first rather disconcerting, but the overall effect is to emphasise how much goes unspoken in apparently innocuous dialogue, and how fatally difficult it becomes to articulate important things after a lifetime of not doing so. Outbursts of temper never lead to longwinded or tearful confessions. The cumulative effect of all this reticence is etched on Kate's face as she dances with Geoff in the village hall - it is utterly unclear what she will do next, while Geoff appears to think that he has made things right by publicly declaring his love for his wife.

Geraldine James and Gabriel Byrne handle this low-key approach with great skill, though there is a slight danger that at times they speak too quietly. One soon realises how verbose many dramas are on stage and screen in comparison to this stripped back but still very revealing dialogue, which, in this stage version, is perfectly matched by the austere visual style.