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 JOANNE AKALAITIS (Director) has previously directed four plays for Court: MARY STUART, THE IPHIGENIA CYCLE (also for Theatre for a New Audience), LIFE'S A DREAM, and IN THE PENAL COLONY (also for ACT Seattle and Classic Stage Company). She was co-founder and co-artistic director of Mabou Mines, where she directed Dressed Like an Egg, Dead End Kids, and Beckett's Cascando (and many more). Other directorial credits include Endgame and The Balcony (American Repertory Theatre); The Screens (The Guthrie Theatre); 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (Goodman Theatre); Green Card (Mark Taper Forum); Dance of Death (Arena Stage); In the Summer House (Lincoln Center); The Visit of the Old Lady (New York City Opera); Kata Kabanova (Opera Theater of St. Louis); Cymbeline and Henry IV, Parts I & II (New York Shakespeare Festival); and The Trojan Women (Shakespeare Theater). She is currently chair of the Theatre Department at Bard College, she recently served as the Andrew J. Mellon Chair of the Directing Program at the Juilliard School, and she is former artistic director of the New York Shakespeare Festival. JoAnne is the recipient of five Obie Awards for direction and production, a Drama Desk Award, the NEA Award for Sustained Artistic Achievement, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Edwin Booth Award for Theatrical Achievement in New York, and the TCG/Pew Charitable Trusts National Theatre Residency Grant at Court.
INSIGHTS: Director JoAnne Akalaitis talks with Court Dramaturg Celise Kalke
Celise Kalke: What interests you about Jean Racine as a playwright?
JoAnne Akalaitis: Racine is one of the most vertical of poets. He writes clearly and mannerly about hideous passion. He has characters appear without transition. They simply speak without introduction which is astonishingly fresh and also difficult to stage. We are accustomed to psychology in theatre, and there is very little of that in Racine's work. Everything is full tilt, there is no comic relief. The play drives through to its awful and inevitable end, with no relief for any character or for the audience. As in the Greeks, we know the story. We know things will end badly, but we are fascinated by how things come to such an awful end, as opposed to what the end will be.
CK: What is Racine saying about love in Phèdre?
JA: It's hard to say. In the play there are two young people in love, Hippolytus and Aricia. I don't think Phèdre is in love. Phèdre has an irrational passion (for Hippolytus) and it's not even lust. It's irrational! It's something smoking.
CK: What do you think attracts Phèdre to Hippolytus?
JA: I think she doesn't know. Obsessions are like that, they aren't analyzable. You can't explain them. We know from the play that Hippolytus is innocent and athletic, not necessarily attributes that would lead to an obsession. It would be like being obsessed with Tiger Woods.
CK: What makes casting Phèdre as someone in her thirties different than casting her as someone in her middle age?
JA: I wanted to get away from Phèdre as grande dame played by people like Sarah Bernhardt or Eve La Galliene. All the great (mature) actresses in France have played this part. I can imagine what it's like (although I haven't seen Phèdre in French). I wanted to get away from the "great dame" notion of Phèdre because it makes the play less approachable and human. Jenny Bacon is a star and a great actress, but because she's so young and attractive it makes the play accessible.
CK: Racine was very Catholic, how does this affect the play?
JA: The element of Catholicism emerges in a very powerful way in Phèdre. Evil thoughts are sins. This was part of Racine's center for this character, that thoughts are sinful. In Racine, thinking equals action. This is not any part of (our) contemporary ethos, and it's hard for us to understand.
CK: How does this Phèdre compare to your The Iphegenia Cycle, given that they are both inspired by Greek mythological sources?
JA: Myths (like the Greek myths) remain culturally important, or they wouldn't be myths. We wouldn't keep coming back to these stories. The (French) neoclassical versions of Greek myths are very different than the Greek plays. It's not even that helpful (to read the Greek) , but it's necessary. Racine's Phèdre does not seem like a Greek play, it's a French play. However, we aren't setting it in France, but in a spa-like resort. It's a place where rich important people vacation. It's the kind of place where nothing bad could ever happen - a place where people can't be emotionally or psychologically damaged. But of course, they are!
CK: What is unique about working on French drama?
JA: French neoclassical playwrights in English are rather stiff, (and I wanted to fight that tendency toward stiffness with the casting). That's what's good about Paul Schmidt's translation (of Phèdre); it's very speakable. Racine is the first French playwright who made his living writing plays. The guy was a hit. He was an interesting person. Many modern playwrights have been influenced by Racine. Becket admired Racine enormously, because his mastery of French Verse was so remarkable. Beckett's portrayal of stasis, where everything happens but nothing happens, is partially inspired by Racine.
CK: What makes this play feel so contemporary?
JA: It's an iconographic story. I think it's interesting that so many writers are attracted to the story (of Phèdre). It's been an inspiration for many modern writers. The Phèdre story occurs in real life. For example, the French writer Colette, in middle age, seduced her stepson and had an affair with him.
CK: What questions do you have about Phèdre at this point in your preparation?
JA: I don't understand the play, but I never understand the play before I go into rehearsals. I'm always in torment about whatever I direct, and then we figure it out in rehearsal.
CK: What makes this play challenging compared to Life's a Dream, Mary Stuart and other plays you have directed for Court Theatre?
JA: They're all different, and they have their own challenges. Once you start comparing things you get yourself in trouble. I look at a play as if I'm directing it for the first time. This IS the first time I've directed this play, or a play about Phèdre, or a play by Racine. But almost every time I direct at Court, it's a totally different animal.
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