Andromache is an intriguing choice from Oxford Theatre Guild, and the first play ever to be performed in Trinity College chapel. Written at the dawn of the liberal era, it is now being performed during what many believe to be its twilight days; the unruly passions and delusory hopes for transcendent love so prevalent in this production all but extinguished in our current time of ironic detachment and total privatisation of the self.
Racine’s play reflects perfectly the ambivalence towards romantic love felt by the European elite of the seventeenth century. Was it a dangerous passion needing to be suppressed by rational self-interest? Or the ultimate authentic expression of life, vitality and individual character? That depends, the answer seems to be, on how it is handled - and where it is directed.
For Hermione, Orestes and Pyrrhus, love manifests not only as a mental illness but a physical one, representing a loss of self that can only lead to utter destruction. Their confidantes, who seem almost like Pullman-esque daemons representing their master’s brains, embark on a futile quest to counsel the subordination of those passions to reason. Phoenix, played by David Guthrie, cuts an austere Churchillian figure of authoritative wisdom, all wasted on Pyrrhus, whom Neelaksh Sadhoo expertly portrays as a pained and terminally indecisive guerilla leader engaged in a war of attrition with his own dignity.
The only advisor who has any luck with their entreaties is Cephisa. Her mistress, the captive Andromache, is able to see sense only, it seems, because her love, being for one who is dead, is bound up with sacrifice and duty, rather than being at odds with them; for her alone, love is synonymous with self-control rather than anathema to it. With her proud and indignant demeanour, and total commitment to an unbending moral code, Alison Stibbe’s Andromache strikes me as a dead ringer for Caroline Lucas, the only one in the room with any sense. Of course, it helps that both her suitors and detractors alike are objectively contemptible.
It is a fine play, and a compelling performance. Kelly Ann Stewart renders Hermione’s switching between coy elfin charm and thunderous reproach with disturbing realism, whilst Cyd Cowley adeptly depicts an Orestes whose hope is eternally pregnant with despair. And the unusual choice of venue paid off, bringing the whole audience into an intense proximity with the players. An ambitious choice, pulled off with aplomb.
