Phaedra - NT 2023

Stone on writing Helen....

Stone will use it to pull aside the invisibility cloak that enfolds women as they slide towards the menopause, in one of the great cultural injustices of the modern age. “I’ve spent a lot of time talking to and reflecting on postmenopausal women who feel eradicated,” he says. “They realise they’re not being seen any more, and that their sexuality has been deleted from the public eye. There have, of course, been all sorts of hormonal changes, but their sexuality doesn’t feel like it has diminished, and in some cases it’s increased. But that feels very at odds with the way we talk about potency. And that word in itself has implications of reproductivity in it, so in some ways it can’t even be applied metaphorically to a woman who is no longer capable of reproduction.”

Isn’t it astonishing, he adds, that even in the modern world the sexual narrative is still somehow linked to heterosexual reproduction. “But of course, reproduction is inherently heterosexual, in its cliched, old-fashioned connotation. So it all becomes very heteronormative and very, very patriarchal, just in the casual way that that world talks about and represents and celebrates sexuality in 50-plus women.”

www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/jan/21/director-simon-stone-my-heroes-are-women-phaedra-janet-mcteer-national-theatre-billie-piper-yerma

He’s aware that in the current culture wars around gender and patriarchal oppression, this is contested territory. “I have long hair but I also have a massive beard and I’m in a heterosexual relationship. It’s really difficult to talk about because it’s such a sensitive topic for so many people for various different reasons. But my heroes are women. And when you’re writing plays with heroes in them, you want to be able to write one that you really respect and admire. I find that easier to do with women than I do with men.”

One result of this, he admits, is that “my men are very attenuated. If you studied all of my plays, you would always see a man who is unresolved, underdeveloped and unfinished, who doesn’t have the paradoxical nuance that his female counterpart has, because that’s my experience of masculinity: it is attenuated.”

“I was so interested in the idea of a woman who falls in love with a younger man and discovers her desire again – the excitement and rush of such a loss of control, and the idea that you could have a second chance in life,” says Stone. “Of course it’s a crazy act of amour fou, but like all of the Greek myths it’s an exorcism of the self-destructive potential in all of us.”

Where did you see the Seneca version ?

Pleasantly surprised by this. I had a free afternoon during my theatre binge week in London and decided to book this. Very funny (especially the restaurant scene) but as many have said before, some scenes are very fast paced and sometimes difficult to follow. I guess this was the intent though, to demonstrate the chaos and power dynamics within the family.  I also had no problems with the subtitles once I eventually discovered they were projected at the bottom of the stage too. 

I thought the ending was a little rushed to make Janet McTeer's suicide believable but overall I really enjoyed this.  She definitely deserves her Olivier nomination. 

I was, however, sat next to an elderly couple who during the interval did nothing but complain about the actors speaking over one another, the amount of shouting and how Sofiane 'would be more desirable if he were taller'!  They contemplated leaving but ended up staying.  Think they were expecting a more 'traditional' Greek tragedy production and not a modern twist by the sounds of it.