STAGE REVIEW : ‘Phaedra’ at UC Irvine Fails to Make Audience Feel Power of Tragic Myth

Keith Fowler, the director of Jean Racine’s “Phaedra” at UC Irvine, believes that the Racine shaping of the Greek myth evades successful English translation, and that all the “adaptations” (as he calls them) of the 17th-Century dramatist’s poetry are apt to be frustrating, giving only a hint of the tragedy’s power.

His solution, apparently, is to accept that any English-speaking staging is likely to be an imperfect business: The way to at least approach Racine’s intent, as Fowler sees it, is to incorporate the original French. So that’s what he’s done, in a production that continues at UCI’s Fine Arts Concert Hall through Feb. 3.

In the program notes, Fowler said he sees the play as “almost a spoken opera” that can take the audience “on a flight of passion” when the original poetry is employed “as almost a musical score to accompany the story.” At Thursday’s opening night performance, his cast used the French text often during pivotal moments, as a way to introduce key scenes or cocoon the various epiphanies that mark the play.

Did it work? Not for me. I found it intrusive, a self-conscious device that may have confused those who don’t speak French and disrupted consistency for those who did.

Still, Fowler’s notion does take us to the question of where “Phaedra” is supposed to take us. The tragic myth often makes for an ephemeral trip; it expects us to feel as well as see, and any director who approaches it must mingle the evocative with the literal. Fowler understands that.

However, even though “Phaedra” is poetry and myth, it’s also a drumbeat tale of unrequited, disastrous yearning. Phaedra, the wife of King Theseus, loves her stepson, Hippolytus: This is the stuff of adult melodrama, and it requires clear storytelling.

Even with the French verse, Fowler is able to convey what’s going on, but only on one level. Understanding doesn’t necessarily mean caring, and what he fails to make accessible is the full dimension of the characters, and the sad consequences at hand.

Much of the problem Thursday night was in the acting, a uniformly moody and mostly portentous approach from the student cast. There was obvious emotion but it didn’t always have a natural sweep that would have brought us closer and given deeper insight.

Luck Hari’s Phaedra, for instance, moved too readily from shame and degradation to lusty appreciation of Hippolytus during her confessional speech. Madness may not have limits, but the personification of madness certainly should. As for Hippolytus, Stacy Ross, who was so affecting in UCI’s recent “Twelfth Night,” seemed uncomfortable with the role’s mix of callowness, princely nobility and sensuality.

In keeping with the vaguely abstract nature of the production, Zhaoping Wei’s ramped set, with its suspended horizontal drapes, is an arty and accommodating representation of a palace antechamber.

‘PHAEDRA’

A UC Irvine production of Jean Racine’s drama. Directed by Keith Fowler. With Stacy Ross, Thomas James Redding, Luck Hari, Jane Spigarelli, Paula Rodriguez, Deanne Lorette, Ann Hamilton, Henry Leyva, Gregory Beirne, Haile Clay, Jonathan Corners, Steve De Tata, David Farnsworth, Andrew Jett, David Moore, William Stolpe and Marco Zirino. Set by Zhaoping Wei. Costumes by Richard Triplett. Lighting by Merritt S. Crosby. Music by Paul Hodgins. Choreography by Donald Bradburn. Plays today and Tuesday through Feb. 3 at 8 p.m., with a 2 p.m. matinee today and Feb. 3 at the campus’ Fine Arts Concert Hall. Tickets: $7--$10. (714) 856-5000.