After two successful shows, “Barbecue” and “Working,” the Hofstra Drama Department closed out its spring semester with a production of “Phaedra,” written by Jean Racine and translated and directed by Royston Coppenger, the chair of the Drama Department. “Phaedra” played weekends starting on Friday, April 9 and closed on Sunday, April 18, with a bonus performance on Thursday, April 15; like “Barbecue,” performances were live streamed on Twitch. The play, originally written in French in the 17th century, is an adaptation of the Greek myth of Phaedra, a princess who falls in love with her stepson Hippolytus. Phaedra’s husband Theseus, the king of Athens, has been missing for several years and is pronounced dead; the question of succession brings Phaedra’s nurse Oenone to encourage her to go for the throne. When Theseus returns alive and well, Phaedra is horrified and to purify Greece of her treacherous love for Hippolytus, kills herself.
“Phaedra” featured a cast of eight talented actors who delivered night after night of stunning performances. Sophomores Jonny Grimes, Harrison Campbell, Claire Riley and Arianna Wentworth played Theramenes, Theseus, Ismene and Panope respectively. Each of them put their all into their characters and highlighted the bright future of the department. Campbell’s portrayal of the betrayed king Theseus was particularly noteworthy. The pure rage and anguish of a man double-crossed by wife and son is difficult to communicate through a tiny box on Zoom, but the audience felt his fever-pitch emotions clear as day.
Rounding out the cast were juniors Earl Rice Jr. and Mackenzie Krestul as Hippolytus and Oenone, and seniors Erica Fletcher and Kaitlyn Escobar as Aricia and the title role of Phaedra. Like the sophomore cast members, each upperclassman put everything into this show, and it absolutely showed. Escobar’s performance as the troubled Phaedra was without a doubt the best part of the show. Phaedra’s constant shifting between grief, anguish, anger and despair is a challenge for even the most experienced of actors, but she took this challenge head-on and exceeded all expectations.
“Phaedra” is a historic show for the Drama Department; this is the first time Hofstra has ever staged a play from the French neoclassical genre. Not only were the actors making strides into the world of online theatre, they also were setting new precedents for future performances in this genre. This was a unique challenge for the cast and creative team, but their experience with producing Shakespeare helped them overcome the challenge. “It’s actually very similar to how I approach Shakespeare,” Grimes said. “I let the language of the play dictate what emotions I’m feeling, so it was really interesting to find how much was right in the text.”
The cast and crew knew ahead of time that they would be performing online, but they started with in-person masked and socially distanced rehearsals. They then moved to doing in-person rehearsals while on Zoom, where they acted to their cameras but were next to their scene partners. The final phase consisted of rehearsals fully on Zoom. “With Zoom, it’s a very interesting mix of cinematic acting and theatrical acting,” Escobar said. “It’s a lot easier to create a kind of intimacy on Zoom rather than on stage, since when you’re on stage you’re supposed to show emotion to the back row. It’s kind of flexing two muscles at once.”
Despite the challenges presented by the ever-changing COVID-19 pandemic, the Drama Department was able to produce another spectacular spring season. “Phaedra” was the perfect show to close out the semester and year, and the fall semester will likely be just as successful. The Shakespeare festival will return with “Macbeth” and “This Bud of Love,” a one-hour adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet.” This fall’s contemporary play will be “Everybody” by Branden Jacob-Jenkins.
