Andromaque

'Andromaque' is a daisy chain of obsession and murder, whose characters (Pyrrhus, his Trojan booty Andromaque, his spurned fiancée Hermione and her old Greek flame Orestes) are caught in the bloody backwash of the Trojan War. Director Declan Donnellan's electric company of French actors spit and rasp out Jean Racine's words in their original language, making such rolling havoc out of the lines that even if you're no linguist, their force and feeling pour over you. Camille Cayol is guttural and mesmerising as the stern captive Andromaque, who must decide whether to sacrifice her son to the vengeful Greeks or marry the man who butchered her family and keeps her imprisoned while he courts her. The surtitles are the Achilles heel of Donnellan's terse, sparse production: they are readable, but a lot less eloquent than the emotional storm on stage. The air of elegant repression helps make this barely staged drama hypnotic: the lovers' costumes wouldn't look out of place at a '40s Parisian soirée, but there is nothing courteous about the unrequited passions that destroy them all in a show of bloodstained wedding confetti.