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by Jean Racine, translated by Ted Hughes, directed by Daniel Brooks

Soulpepper Theatre Company, du Maurier Theatre Centre, Toronto

July 18-August 16, 2003

Racine's "Phèdre" (1677) is considered the pinnacle of French dramatic literature.  For French actresses the title role is what Hamlet is for actors in the English-speaking world.  Soulpepper's first foray into French neoclassical tragedy could have been a triumph were it not for director Daniel Brooks's annoyingly wrong-headed production.  That the play's greatness still shines through is due to the efforts of a very strong cast.

The story, based on Euripides' "Hippolytus" (428 BC), finds Phèdre is dying from the strain of hiding her unquenchable passion for her stepson Hippolytus.  When a report comes that her husband, Hippolytus' father, Theseus is dead, she reveals her love to her stepson.  When the report is proved false, Phèdre's nurse Oenone encourages her to accuse Hippolytus of incest to save herself.  Theseus' curse, Oenone's guilt and Phèdre's shame lead to a tragic outcome.  Phèdre, like her half-brother the Minotaur, is lost in a maze of passion.  In this existential examination of sin, Phèdre, the granddaughter of Helios the sun god and daughter of Minos a judge in hell, sees no escape from shame in this life or the next.  

Brooks has deservedly won kudos for his tightly controlled, minimalist style.  He might be thought the perfect match for Racine, who deliberately pared down both plot and vocabulary to a minimum beyond that dictated by 17th-century French poetics.  Brooks's style has previously suited modern minimalists writers like Beckett and Pinter and caught the essence of an expansive writer like Goethe.  With "Phèdre", however, he focusses so intently on underscoring the artificiality of the play that he risks suffocating its drama beneath his affectations.

Brooks has stylized and restricted the actors' blocking, gestures and movement.  While it does create a sense of restraint to counter the characters' raging passions, it also soon becomes precious.  One frequently has the impression that Brooks is more interested in how the actors are positioned and lit than in what they are saying.  In a play where the sun is not just a theme but the immortal grandfather of the title character, he has strangely not encouraged lighting designer Andrea Lundy to locate the source of outside light in any precise way except at the very end.  He asks for a non-naturalistic style from Lundy, creating many pretty chiaroscuro pictures punctuated by periodic whiteouts, but unrelated to the play's imagery. 

Brooks' worst decision is to have Richard Feren's soundscape play throughout the entire length of the play.  Stratford's habit of underscoring famous speeches with music is bad enough, but this is truly irritating and points to a lack of confidence in the spoken word.  It also turns Racine's dialogue where silence is as important as in Beckett literally into melodrama.  On its own Feren's music with its twinklings and whooshes is attractive but it seem more suited to the soundtrack of a sci-fi movie than a drama of human passion.

It's hard to know what Dany Lyne's gloomy set means.  Is it the furnace where Phèdre says she lives?  Is it the pit that Theseus says he finds himself?  Are the increasingly smaller doors behind the main door mean to suggest a maze?  If so why is there direct entrance from the outside?  Or do they present the story as a series of Chinese boxes?  Lyne's costumes mixing old and new are dull for the men, beautiful for the women, but it's hard to understand why Phèdre, a woman who longs only to die, should accoutre herself an elegant gown that makes her seem vain.

If Phèdre is one of the Everests for an actress, Nancy Palk makes a noble effort but does not reach the top.  She is far too vital for someone who has lost her will to live.  Phèdre's frequent bouts of self-laceration should be seen as her attempts to define and punish herself at the same time, while Palk can't remove the tone of complaint from her voice that makes these scenes sound like overdramatized ramblings.  When Phèdre confesses her love for Hippolytus, Palk allows coyness to enter where she should show the horror of being compelled to speak the unspeakable.

Jonathan Watton does very well as Hippolytus even if he doesn't fully project the character's all-consuming pride.  Tanja Jacobs also does not fully explore the motivations of Phèdre's nurse and confidante Oenone, whose name the cast is consistent in mispronouncing.  Jacobs gives us a woman who seems kindly, constantly pressing her mistress to live, but is this pressure compassionate?  There must be more to someone who so easily can lie and scheme.  Yet, Jacobs does makes us feel Oenone's devastation when Phèdre finally rejects her.

In luxury casting Yanna McIntosh and Kate Hennig, both of whom could play Phèdre when the time comes, are Hippolytus' forbidden beloved Aricia and her confidante Ismène.  McIntosh's presence insures that Aricia is not the frightened captive as she is sometimes played.  Rather, this Aricia is full of anger and pride and makes her acceptance of Hippolytus' declaration of love believable.

William Webster turns in one of his best ever performances as Hippolytus' confidant Théramène.  His chilling relation of the supernatural catastrophe that befalls Hippolytus held the audience in rapt silence clinging to his ever word. 

Diego Matamoros might seem an odd choice for the aging hero Theseus, but yet again he proves that he is one of Canada's greatest actors.  Along with Webster he is the one who captures the precise tone of the play.  Only with his entrance after the intermission does the play finally come together.  Showing superb control of pace and inflection, he makes the rough poetry of Ted Hughes's translation actually sound like poetry and finds greater nuance in the lines than do the other principals.

Those who think that French neoclassical tragedy cannot succeed in English have not seen the thrilling "Phèdre" starring Patricia Conolly that Brian Bedford directed for Stratford in 1990 or the "Phèdre" and "Britannicus", both starring Diana Rigg, that Jonathan Kent directed at the Almeida in 1998.  In the right hands the power of these plays can sweep you up in their forward momentum and leave you gasping for breath.  Daniel Brooks's affectations chop up the action and undermine its power.  It draws attention to itself and not to the characters whose conflicts he has not deeply enough considered.  Nevertheless, enough of the performances are good that the play still hits home, if only in its conclusion, despite Brooks' tricks.  Let's hope that Soulpepper continues to explore this genre that has so many riches to discover.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2003-09-04.

Photo: Nancy Palk.