When Jean Racine wrote Britannicus in 1669, he was governed by the French classical idea that required a play to occur within real time, in a single place, during the course of a day. But for a modern audience, and even with the redoubtable Timberlake Wertenbaker as translator and adapter, Britannicus proves a static rather than a vividly unfolding drama. Wertenbaker has shortened the text but is still necessarily involved in stodgy catchup explanations that stall progress. Director Atri Banerjee does his ingenious best to meet all challenges intrepidly, but until the ending, action is so scant that when Nero has a tantrum two-thirds of the way through, and relieves his feelings by hitting the office water cooler, it is a high point. At worst, the experience of watching the play is like driving with the handbrake on.
Britannicus is really Nero’s story: a day in the life of a despot. And there are some great performances here: William Robinson is excellently cast as the Roman emperor – he strolls around in white tracksuit bottoms, with bare feet, as if on a casual power trip. He has a way of gaslighting others for laughs to underpin his own control freakery, and given the sobriety elsewhere, you are grateful for the calculated entertainment this affords. The play focuses on Nero’s relationship with his tyrannical mother, Agrippina. Sirine Saba fiercely communicates her sense of having been neglected by her son (Racine’s maternal power play is in interesting contrast to that other Roman pair: Shakespeare’s Coriolanus and Volumnia).
