Classical drama seems to be having its moment, not only in straight plays but also in dance. Tonight’s short double bill, Britten’s twenty-minute Phaedra cantata written in 1975 and performed the following year by Janet Baker at the Aldeburgh festival paired with Kim Brandstrup’s choreographic twice-as-long Minotaur, is intensely stimulating.
Britten’s Phaedra, text taken from Robert Lowell’s translation of Racine’s Phèdre (of which I seem to have five different texts and academic studies on my shelves—I’m glad to be prompted to seek them out…), appropriately has something of the Baroque about it.
It opens with ominous chords, presaging Phaedra’s unravelling and ultimate death as she reflects / laments on the damage she has done. The stage is littered with memories of the past: the Minotaur’s head, silver shoes on a red chair and a dead youth, Hippolytus (Oscar Fichelson), she the cause of his death, all under dust-sheets. Ultimately, she wraps herself in a dust-sheet as she expires.
Is she already in the underworld, as the blindingly white backcloth suggests: she comes on in blindfold like Orpheus. Christine Rice, barefoot, in simple modern-day shirt and trousers, gives an anguished performance, accompanied by Richard Hetherington on grand piano. Absolutely stunning.
No less stunning is Tommy Franzen’s physicality as the deus ex machina Dionysus in Minotaur, Brandstrup’s thoughtful artistic dance piece. The Minotaur’s head lies as a reminder on the cell floor. A black climbing wall is slashed with red paint (designer for both pieces is Antony McDonald)—there are pots of it on the floor.
Who is the painter? Whose canvas is this? A doorway high above and a bed below. Ariadne, who was betrayed by Theseus after she helped him slay the Minotaur (Tommy Franzen), is grieving. For herself? Or for what might have been?
She watches from a high doorway in the wall as Theseus (Jonathan Goddard) does the deed. She dances with him and then he is gone. Kirsten McNally shows hidden depths in her lamentation solo.
Then an impish Dionysus (Franzen transformed), looking down on the poor mortal, descends down that wall from on high, and what a descent. Franzen seems weightless, made of light air. He makes it look effortless, muscle power invisible. Truly a gymnastic god. I remember Franzen tackling a high wall (with no holds) in Russell Maliphant's Wall (The Rodin Project).
Ariadne, of course, can’t see him, but he supports her dance—on his feet, on his back, every which way. She floats in the air until finally becalmed. She throws the pots of paint out of that high doorway—is this the end of her grief?
The forty minutes are broken down into headed chapters, which we don't really need: combat / seduction / departure / lament / deus ex machina. The visuals speak for themselves. And Eilon Morris’s soundscape with its Middle-Eastern tones and vocals is a sensitive film score. Brandstrup, who trained in film before dance, has something of the arthouse cinematographer in him.
Lighting is integral to both artistic concepts: for Phaedra, lighting designer Chris Wilkinson acknowledges Adam Silverman’s influence; for Minotaur, Jean Kalman’s.
Deborah Warner’s Phaedra was first seen on the Main Stage in October 2020, at the Ustinov Studio, Bath and the Edinburgh International Festival. Minotaur, we are told, was choreographed specially for this programme. What a juxtaposition…
There is profundity and more to unravel in this clever pairing. Why are both women blind? Blind to themselves or to men’s duplicitous natures? Or do the gods weave our fates? Performances are exceptional—I have booked to see it again.