THEATRE: ELECTRA/PERSONA:A New Play by Benedict Andrews After Sophocles and Ingmar Bergaman
It has been a summer of Greek tragedy, first with Christopher Nolan's much-hyped film The Odyssey, and now with the opening of a new play by Benedict Andrews, Electra/Persona, at the National Theatre. Having bagged a last-minute ticket for a show that is already showing a full house through October, it was a delight to join the packed audience for what promised to be an enthralling evening.
I studied Sophocles at university, mainly Antigone, but was familiar with Electra. Electra is the daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. Clytemnestra seeks revenge on her husband for sacrificing their eldest daughter to the gods some years earlier; so when he returns triumphant from the Trojan War, she kills him with the help of her lover, Aegisthus. Her daughter Electra cannot find it in herself to forgive her mother for this crime, and waits for the return of her brother Orestes to take revenge. Electra, angry and trapped in her life, rages against her mother, not knowing what else to do.
I had no prior knowledge of Persona or how it would be juxtaposed against Electra. As I learned, it centres on an actress, Elisabet Vogler, who, during a production of Electra in which she plays the title role, suddenly stops speaking. She is taken into psychiatric care, where she is looked after by a competent, chatty nurse named Alma.
The two narratives are woven together by a deep sense of unfathomable grief and a feeling of entrapment. This is done cleverly and seamlessly, with few theatrical props and a reliance on extraordinary performances from Cate Blanchett and Nina Hoss. Both actresses are phenomenal. Each evening's performance opens with a member of the audience tossing a coin, after which the two actresses switch roles. On the evening I attended, Cate Blanchett won the toss and chose to play Clytemnestra opposite Nina Hoss's Electra, and Alma opposite Nina Hoss's Elisabet. Across the two halves, the roles alternate between the ferocious grief and rage of Electra and the deeper, chilling psychological grief of Persona. The chemistry between the two actresses is extraordinary.
The mature, deeply controlled direction allows both halves to blend seamlessly, demonstrating the fluidity of personality and the confusion of identities. In Electra, the characters are trapped by a destiny overwhelmed by the power of the gods; in Persona, it is the psychological power of the self that overrides everything.
Electra/Persona is a powerful, singular play, brought together with great success by a brilliant director, two phenomenal actresses and a haunting soundtrack by Oscar winning Hildur Guondadotir. It challenges your thinking on grief, anger, and identity, and comes together in what I would call a brilliant production worth seeing.
Electra/Persona is running at the National Theatre's Lyttelton Theatre until 10 October 2026.
ELECTRA/PERSONA is running at the National Theatre's Lyttelton Theatre until 10 October 2026.