Electra/Persona reviews: Blanchett and Hoss dazzle, but critics are divided on whether the concept lands

"Australian writer-director Benedict Andrews takes a new tack – he poses the question of why, of all the plays, Elisabet’s breakdown should happen during Sophocles’ Electra."

"A central feature of Andrews’ production is that his stars, Cate Blanchett and Nina Hoss, toss a coin before each show to determine who’ll be playing Electra and Clytemnestra."

"It’s far from a gimmick. Immediately, we get a sense that the roles these actors are playing are not fixed, but permeable, and will bleed into one another."

"Andrews doesn’t always have total confidence in his vision. Perfunctory nods to social media news fatigue and to the climate crisis lack subtlety, and feel at odds with these characters’ inward-looking self-obsession."

"The aforementioned onstage camera work serves its thematic purpose, and is a fine showcase for both performers’ skilful facial acting, but often tips into Jamie Lloyd-esque self-indulgence, or mimics memorable shots from the Bergman film without expanding upon them."

"Both Andrews’ sElectra and his Persona could more than stand on their own as imaginative takes on seminal texts that reward those with knowledge of the source material. But the production’s real strength is in the elegant parallels it draws, to form a new whole that enriches and enhances the work of both Sophocles and Bergman."

"From the POV of an audience member who will (probably) only ever see it one way around, let’s call it what it is: a flex over how good Blanchett and Hoss are. And they’re really, really good."

"Even if Benedict Andrews’ production doesn’t entirely ‘work’, the sense that it is just bloody amazing having two incredible actors doing an enormous amount of acting – and that we’re actually only seeing half of it – carries the night."

"While there are links between the pieces, you could drive yourself mad looking for continuity: I think it’s easier to view Electra/Persona as a double bill."

"The Bergman adaptation is much more faithful to the original, albeit it’s set in the present day (a mobile phone is a big plot point). There is much more stage trickery in this part, notably the prominent deployment of live film."

"There’s some virtuosic live camera work, but it’s all in aid of the actors: Hoss’s huge, scared eyes, Blanchett’s agelessly beautiful face rendered sinister and skull-like in shadow, and the two women’s movements settling into eerie lockstep."

"Hildur Guðnadóttir’s original soundtrack is gentle but ominous, recordings of heartbeats and – according to the credits – teeth, with added strings. There is particularly fine lighting, from Jon Clark, that takes us from balmy summer to inky netherworld."

"Electra is good, Persona is good, Electra/Persona isn’t necessarily one for the ages."

“What it lacks in intellectual coherence, it more than makes up for with its sheer star power – which is appropriate enough since one of its multiple themes is acting itself.”

“The evening draws attention to its own innate theatricality by starting with Blanchett and Hoss, their blonde hair pulled back in fierce buns, and dressed in black shirts and trousers, walking into the Lyttelton’s auditorium and asking an audience member to toss a coin. The outcome determines what parts they will subsequently play.”

“Here [Andrews] yokes a fairly radical version of Sophocles (where Electra morphs into her own brother Orestes) onto a reasonably faithful approximation of Persona, which slightly softens some of its harder blows.”

“It is however, one thing to notice some similarities and another to make two works, radiant and revolutionary in themselves, shine light on one another. ”

“Benedict Andrews’ stitching of the ancient Greek play and Swedish film is slickly staged and persuasively performed, but clinically intellectual.”

“The roles of the actor Elisabeth and nurse Alma are played entrancingly by Hollywood royalty Cate Blanchett and her Tár co-star Nina Hoss – who alternate characters.”

“But Andrews incorporates an appetiser in the form of a mini production of Electra – one that dials down the tragedy and heightens the comedy, holding its audience at arm’s length to remind us it’s all pretend.”

“It illustrates the production’s wider arguments around duality and playing roles, but makes for sterile viewing.”

“Taboos surface and shame swirls as the women’s lives begin to merge, and another strangled mother-daughter relationship eventually emerges. We feel little when it does, though. It’s not a case of too little too late, but for all its stylishness and persuasive performances, this production is clinically intellectual – theatre for the head, not the heart.”

“Blanchett remains such an icily charismatic presence that you’re reluctant to look away even when the pace sags.”

“Still, as the overlong Bergman segment wafts towards its conclusion, it’s the crispness of the images of the two women projected on to a compact screen that holds your attention rather than the script itself.”

“It’s the Greek section that proves slightly more satisfying. Andrews has added modern ingredients to the Trojan War tale.”

“Blanchett and Hoss’s immaculate screen technique comes to the fore: these are actors who can make the most of the smallest gesture.”

“Brendan Aanes’s sound design is claustrophobic in both sections.”

“As theatre, though, it lacks spontaneity.”

“Blanchett and Hoss face off in lopsided Sophocles/Bergman double bill”

“Benedict Andrews’ drama after Bergman and Sophocles first welds the two together, then raises the concept higher by enlisting his star castings in Cate Blanchett and Nina Hoss to share the parts of Electra and her murderous mother, Clytemnestra, as well as Bergman’s inexplicably silent actor, Elisabeth, and her nurse, Alma, who fall into a disturbing, mirrored relationship.”

“It’s a clever twist (too clever?) that seems earnest in its intentions to eke out mother-daughter friction from each drama, as well as exploring ideas on performance, how actors assume roles and who they become when they are off-stage – rather than a production conceived as theatrical sport.”

“this intense, interval-free show is quite literally a game of two halves, Andrews’ overhaul of the ancient much more successful than his strangely sterile play on Bergman’s classic.”

“There is some clever overlay between the two parts, with same props and costumes turning up. But Alma’s monologues seem like witterings against Elisabeth’s silences.”

“As a double bill, of sorts, the first is the showcase, not only of its two central performers but the power of performance itself.”

"It’s a coup too for the National to get Blanchett who here gives [Persona] a blast of fresh air and a strong dose of Hollywood glamour following a lacklustre couple of years."

"Andrews signals the artifice from the outset. Just as Persona begins with a montage that includes images of projectors and film strips, here Hoss and Blanchett first rub their faces with chalk, like a Greek mask, before stepping on stage."

"Andrews allows us another perspective on Electra’s all-consuming grief – it’s a performance, indulged in by Electra and observed with cynical weariness by her mother."

"Andrews then tips us into Bergman’s film, the shift signalled for real – in somewhat hackneyed fashion – by stage hands mopping up the stage."

"While Andrews lends a pin-sharp emotional clarity to Sophocles, he fails to find a theatrical language to match Bergman’s cinematic artistry."

"Hoss and Blanchett are entirely watchable, although Hoss has the edge, her Electra ravaged by anguish but also amusingly prone to adolescent petulance."