Phèdre at the NT ***

I took my mum to see Phèdre at the National, with Helen Mirren and Dominic Cooper of The History Boys and Mamma Mia fame.

The set is a wide bare space with craggy rock and clean sunlight hitting the stage; the lighting creates an incredibly convincing impression of actually being in Greece. Dominic Cooper as Hippolytus is the first on stage and my mum says, “Ooh it’s just like Mamma Mia”. And she’s right – we’re in Greece and Cooper is dressed in a black vest showing off his rippling muscles. But that’s where the similarities end, unless I fell asleep during Mamma Mia and it descended into a bloodbath.

Phèdre (Helen Mirren) is married to Theseus, Hippolytus’ dad. Phèdre fancies the pants off Hippolytus (Dominic Cooper) and has persecuted him in order to prevent her true feelings coming out. But when Theseus is missing, presumed dead, she ends up admitting her love. Unfortunately for Phèdre, Hippolytus is too upstanding for his own good and inconveniently in love with the younger and beautiful Aricia. And, guess what, Theseus ain’t dead after all. The shame of dishonour and the fear of the repercussions lead Phèdre and her maid into some dastardly decisions.

What starts as something quite inconsequential, especially from the perspective of a modern audience – OK she is in love with her husband’s son but nothing has happened and no-one knows – descends rapidly with each scene into a more and more twisted situation, each step digging their graves deeper.

The cast is strong, with Ruth Negga as Aricia and John Shrapnel as Théramène particularly standing out. His gift of story telling brings an epic monologue of reported action vividly to life. Dominic Cooper, as much as I like him, is mainly eye candy. He holds his own but mainly conveys emotion by raising his voice and talking more emphatically rather than really expressing much depth. Helen Mirren is sometimes very impressive, but the main problem is that she pitches in too high too quickly. Her very first entrance is steeped in melodrama, hysterical. When you start off like that, and there’s two more hours of it, there’s no way to build the tension. You get to saturation point quite quickly. It is quite early on in the run, though, and this may improve with time.

Theseus (Stanley Townsend) is a nice surprise. I was expecting a dashing ladies man, an older version of Hippolytus, but instead we get the entrance of a broad set man, with a Yorkshire accent (I think) and the moodiness of a thunder cloud. It felt like the presence of Ted Hughes, who translated it from Racine’s French. Suddenly you realise the danger and the consequences of Phèdre’s actions. When Theseus later confronts Hippolytus he moves like a sumo wrestler, delivering an irreversible curse.

The play is dramatic, stretched taut over two hours without an interval. I am a great fan of the interval (stretch legs, drink, make a swift exit if necessary), but I can see why they didn’t put one in here. It’s almost if you take a break the tension goes. And I was riveted. I am also usually plagued by a disparate urge to go to the loo within about 20 minutes of the start of a show, by my bladder was paying too much attention. Watching Phèdre is like watching a car spiral out of control in slow motion.

But this is also the downside. It’s too dramatic, too stretched, and – mainly due to Mirren (sorry Helen!) – too hysterical and when the play ends, there is a sense of fatigue and anti-climax. Not the feeling that you get after going through emotional highs and lows, but the one where you’ve spent quite a lot of time concentrating and investing in something and then, when it’s done, you wonder if it was quite worth it. You’re just not connected enough to the characters to care deeply about their downfall.

I think it was very impressive, but it left me a little cold at the end.

I think Phèdre could have learnt a bit from Mamma Mia actually and taken itself a little less seriously. The dramatic tension needs some relief, and a bit of dodgy singing from Pierce Brosnan.