Cate Blanchett and Nina Hoss star in Electra/Persona at the National Theatre’s Lyttelton venue. This production attempts to merge Sophocles’ ancient tragedy with Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 film Persona, but the result feels like a disjointed experiment that struggles to find its footing.
The Coin Flip Concept
Borrowing a trick from Danny Boyle’s 2011 production of Frankenstein, in which Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller alternated roles each night, Blanchett and Hoss ask an audience member to flip a coin to determine who plays which character. During the performance I attended, the coin landed on tails, placing Blanchett in the role of Electra. This premise promises theatrical spontaneity, though the execution never quite delivers on that potential.
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A Troublesome First Act
The production takes place on a vertiginous flight of stairs dominating the entire stage. The biggest tension all night was the fear one of the performers might turn an ankle tottering up and down them. The first act retells the story of Electra and Clytemnestra, with Electra furious that her mother murdered her father Agamemnon in his bathtub upon his return from the Trojan War. Clytemnestra, for her part, was upset that Agamemnon had sacrificed one of their daughters in exchange for favorable winds for the fleet. The pair bicker, make up, and force each other to recreate the murders of their loved ones, but it all feels strangely dull. Blanchett possesses a sinewy, feline magnetism, yet even her star power cannot illuminate these dense, abstract exchanges.
Dry-ice machines create little clouds that hang in the air. During the murder of Aegisthus, Electra spits viscous, blood-red liquid over him. Smoke tumbles down the steps like a slow-motion river. These visual elements suggest a more compelling theatrical experience than what actually unfolds.
Bergman Meets Greek Tragedy
As the title suggests, this production is not just a retelling of Electra. The second act draws from Bergman’s Persona, in which an actor playing the Greek princess suffers some kind of breakdown and becomes mute mid-performance. So Blanchett becomes the silent actor Elisabet Vogler and Hoss her loquacious nurse. This act introduces live video, with high-definition black and white footage beamed onto a huge screen that lowers onto the stage. Her face appears in extreme close-up as she hides beneath a fur coat, as she reclines on a beach, as she sits beside a campfire. It’s basically all her face, narrated by a chatty nurse.
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The second act does capture some of the surreal, dreamlike quality of Bergman’s masterpiece, but only some. Similar experimental productions have successfully bridged classical and modern storytelling before, though this one never quite manages to clarify what it is trying to say. The artistic intent remains frustratingly opaque. Some may interpret themes about how, in a patriarchal society, women are still pitted against one another. Others may see commentary on how grief is such a powerful force it spans millennia.
Electra/Persona is a long and plodding journey without any particular destination, albeit one with moments of real beauty along the way. Blanchett and Hoss received a bigger round of applause when they appeared at the start to flip the coin than they did after the curtain came down. The production earns two stars out of four.