Phèdre Encore Screening
National Theatre Live launched in June 2009 with a broadcast of Phèdre featuring the great Helen Mirren. Seen by over 50,000 people worldwide, don’t miss your chance to see an Encore screening of this smash hit production.
Helen Mirren takes the title role in this savage play by Jean Racine, translated into muscular free verse by the late Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes.
Consumed by an uncontrollable passion for her young stepson and believing Theseus, her absent husband, to be dead, Phèdre confesses her darkest desires and enters the world of nightmare. When Theseus returns alive and well, Phèdre, fearing exposure, accuses her stepson of rape.
The result is carnage.
Cast (in order of speaking)
Hippolytus Dominic Cooper
Théramène John Shrapnel
Oenone Margaret Tyzack
Phèdre Helen Mirren
Panope Wendy Morgan
Aricia Ruth Negga
Ismène Chipo Chung
Theseus Stanley Townsend
Phèdre's son Elliot Horne
Understudies/Ensemble
Alexander D'Andrea (Hippolytus), Portia Booroff (Panope/Oenone), Elizabeth Nestor(Aricia/Ismène), Tristram Wymark (Theseus/Théramène)
Production Team
Director Nicholas Hytner
Designer Bob Crowley
Lighting Designer Paule Constable
Music Adam Cork