Becoming Bérénice by Jean Racine

When oppressive politics and cultural allegiances forbid love, personal choices become impossibly hard. Two lovers strive to hold on to each other as political forces tear them apart. A multi-sensory, poetic tale of Berenice’s painful journey to emancipation, this contemporary ensemble staging of one of France’s most iconic plays is underpinned by an original score of world and electronic music and powerful physical elements.

In a new translation by Rosie Hilal, this verse drama is given a powerful, contemporary reawakening. A French classic hardly known in Britain, Berenice was written by Jean Racine more than 300 years ago. This is the first time a Racine play has been translated by a woman, which given the subject matter and central character of the piece, makes for a uniquely feminist interpretation of his work.  

Three central characters, from Palestine, Syria/Turkey (the occupied East), and Rome (the imperial, dominating West) revolve around the impossibility of love in an intimate, in-the-round setting, where music and movement bring to the forefront the cultural and societal clashes inherent in the play.  

The agonising opposition of public duty versus private love begs the question of how much we are ever in control of our freedom, and how far we can go for love without giving up our own identity. In some ways, Berenice and Titus recall a grown-up Romeo and Juliet, with an uncertain outcome.  

This is a cross-cultural, multi-disciplinary drama supported by Dramaturg Phil Morris of the Wales Arts Review, Exchange Theatre, Longfield Hall Trust (Lambeth), the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Cambridge University French faculty, and Theatre Delicatessen.