Film · London
Blanchett and Hoss Swap Roles Nightly in Electra/Persona
The Tár co-stars opened on the Lyttelton on 19 August in Benedict Andrews's fusion of Sophocles and Bergman, alternating both leads across the run.
Cate Blanchett and Nina Hoss are on the Lyttelton until 10 October, and they are not playing the same parts twice. Electra/Persona opened at the National Theatre on 19 August with the two of them alternating Electra/Elisabeth and Clytemnestra/Alma across the run. Press night was 1 September.
The piece is a world premiere, adapted and directed by Benedict Andrews, welding Sophocles' Electra to Ingmar Bergman's 1966 film Persona — the film about two women whose identities bleed into one another, which is presumably the entire argument for casting that swaps nightly. It also reunites Blanchett with her Tár co-star.
Two actors, four roles, and no way of knowing which version you have booked.
Ella Lily Hyland plays Chrysothemis/Reader and Patrick Robinson plays Aegisthus/Husband, with understudies Peter Eastland, Frankie Lipman, Celia Nelson and Natalie Thomas. The creative team is stacked: composer Hildur Guðnadóttir, set designer Magda Willi, costume designer Merle Hensel, lighting designer Jon Clark, sound designer Brendan Aanes and video designer Ash J Woodward.
The National announced dates and details back in May, and it is running now — an Oscar winner and one of European cinema's most serious screen actors trading leads on the South Bank on a walk-up ticket rather than a festival pass. It closes on 10 October.