Whatcha doin? Just Roman around

The luminous setting, sand trickling from the ceiling onto the stage into pools of light, was melancholy and serenity personified. The existence of the characters, who would soon be participating in the tragedy, was mirrored, somehow with tenderness,in the environment that had been created. It was an environment fit for observation and for immersion, the audience entirely surrounding a small stage; a single room for Racine’s unhappy creations.

The tragedy in this play is not reliant on death or treason or madness, except perhaps on the folly of love. But it is tragedy nonetheless and in many ways just as brutal as any relying on death would be.

Titus has become Emperor of Rome. His love, Berenice, is an eastern Queen, whom the Romans will never accept as wife for their new Caesar. Titus must ask her to leave or face the coming wrath of the people. Their, as yet unuttered, demand is not however, a suggestion of the cruel ignorance of the masses; it is rather a darkness that will overcome Berenice almost completely.

Anne-Marie Duff is moving and expressive in the title role (although she slouches too much for a queen) and her Titus, Stephen Campbell Moore, with desperation in his eyes, is convincingly the unwilling tyrant to his own soul.

It must be difficult to keep Racine’s purity in an English translation, but the language at least never disturbs. If my attention was kept onthe whole rather than on the quality of the words, this was more a testament to the very beautiful staging.

I have read that the English often find Racine boring: perhaps this is due to bad translations or because Racine’s classicism is very differentto Shakespeare. However in the Donmar Warehouse’s Berenice, even the most embittered of audiences could hardly fail to be moved by the lovers, facing with stoicism, an eternity of loneliness.

Until 24th November only!