The one quality needed in abundance to transmit the heightened emotion and fathom-deep despair of Greek tragedy, is authority. Nicholas Hytner’s revival of Racine’s Phèdre — the queen (played by Helen Mirren) who falls in love with her stepson — has far too little. Bob Crowley’s magnificent design of a stone-hewn terrace looking out on to the purest Mediterranean sky promises much more punch than the production delivers. Dominic Cooper’s Hippolytus, the object of Phèdre’s desire, cuts a dashing figure, but is an underpowered speaker of the muscular verse in Ted Hughes’s version of the play. Stanley Townsend cannot rid himself of the twinkly-eyed charm that is normally his strength, but as the monster-killer Theseus is his weakness. Ruth Negga carries more than her weight as Aricia, treading a fine line between nobility and vulnerability. And although Mirren’s queen is never less than fascinating, even her Phèdre and John Shrapnel’s manly witness Théremène cannot suppress the audience’s unintended laughter.
