Blanchett & Hoss coin-flip casting in uneven Electra/Persona — SkimNews
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- Benedict Andrews directs a double bill fusing Sophocles' Electra and Bergman's 1966 film Persona, running at the National Theatre, London until 10 October.
- Cate Blanchett and Nina Hoss share the four roles — Electra, Clytemnestra, Elisabeth and Alma — with parts assigned by a coin toss involving an audience member before each performance.
- Nina Hoss delivers a searing Electra as a spittingly angry adolescent wielding a hammer, while Blanchett's Clytemnestra is commanding yet beseeching, convincingly justifying her vengeance for Iphigenia's sacrifice.
- The Electra half wins praise for stark staging on Magda Willi's ascending staircase set, effective blood-spattered violence, and Brendan Aanes's heartbeat sound design — the review calls it the showcase of the evening.
- The Persona half draws sharp criticism as 'strangely sterile,' with Alma's monologues dismissed as 'witterings' against Elisabeth's silences and the handheld-camera staging called hackneyed.
- The production's overarching concept — using the double bill to explore performance, role-assumption and mother-daughter friction — is called clever but perhaps 'too clever,' with the join between the two dramas suffering from strain.
Why it matters: For the National Theatre's prestige programming, a star-driven experiment by a major director is being judged a clear split decision: the Sophocles component showcases Blanchett and Hoss at full power, while the Bergman adaptation exposes the limits of cinematic-to-stage transfer techniques (handheld cameras, split screens) that have become a well-worn theatrical shorthand.
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