The ancient Greek tragedy of a woman’s illegitimate desire for her stepson, followed by a false claim of rape when he rejects her, is not an easy one to revive for our times. But it could become rich with modern resonances around postmenopausal desire.
Simon Stone’s reimaginging, which calls itself “a new play after Euripides, Seneca and Racine”, initially seems unrecognisable. Phaedra has become Helen (Janet McTeer), a charismatic politician who falls for Sofiane (Assaad Bouab), the son of her past, now dead, Moroccan lover.
We meet Helen at home with her family and they are gently satirised: the daughter speaks earnestly of her privilege, the young son listens to “counter-cultural philosophical rap” and it seems as if the myth has been reconceived as a middle-class comedy of manners.
But the heart is there: Helen’s illicit passion both revives her and leads to her doom. Stone’s production sets itself to grapple with the desires of a woman in midlife and introduces a postcolonial critique of Helen’s (possibly exoticising) desires.
This is potentially fruitful terrain but the play’s tone repeatedly switches from comedy to serious drama, which brings confusion over what it is trying to say or do. It comes laden with plot turns, not all convincing, which get in the way of any psychological depth. Helen is ultimately rendered a caricature, spoilt and self-obsessed.
McTeer’s performance is strong all the same. There is one sex scene in which Helen speaks touchingly to Sofiane about how her love has made her feel alive again. After this come clear messages that she has been a neglectful mother to her daughter (Mackenzie Davis), a self-obsessed colleague to her friend (Akiya Henry, very good), a failed wife to her husband (Paul Chahidi), and an exploitative lover. But the chemistry between Helen and Sofiane isn’t there, so it is hard to invest in their relationship.
The ancient dramatists worked with several versions of the Phaedra myth, including an unforgiving one in which she is a lustful villain and another in which she is as much a victim as her stepson Hippolytus. Those versions meet and clash here.
In its aesthetics, the production resembles a TV drama, with short, punchy scenes, blackness in between, and a voiceover from Sofiane’s dead father in Arabic with translation across a screen. Chloe Lamford’s set is a rotating transparent box with window-like bars. We are peeping in, voyeurs to Helen’s life. It is visually arresting but keeps us at a distance, even in scenes of intimacy, and we remain voyeurs to the last, never allowed into Phaedra’s mind or heart.
At the Lyttelton theatre, National Theatre, London, until 8 April
