ARTicles vol.5 i.3a: Welcome

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the fifth production of the 2006-07 season, Racine’s Britannicus, directed by Robert Woodruff.

Britannicus is like a triple mirror, reflecting both forward and backward from its own historical moment. The play uses Nero’s Rome to interpret the political landscape of Racine’s own time – the France of Louis XIV – but so acute is its analysis of the corrupting tendencies of power, and so detailed and compassionate the investigation of the psychology of power mongers and their underlings, that Racine’s words also resonate startlingly in the contemporary world.

This is the third of Robert Woodruff’s productions at the A.R.T. that investigates the nature of absolute power. Like Oedipusand Richard II, Britannicus dramatizes the relationship between an individual ruler and the culture that he creates. Nero’s Rome, like Richard’s England and the Thebes of Oedipus, is profoundly shaped by the words, actions, fantasies and aspirations of its ruler. Nero has no private life – or rather, his private life is equivalent to the public, political realm. When the Emperor speaks of Rome, he is also speaking of himself. The borders between his own identity and that of the state cease to exist, and his most intimate desires and insecurities become the stuff of national emergency.

Also like Richard and Oedipus, Nero is a consummate self-mythologist. He feels the gaze of posterity on him, and understands the importance of a compelling narrative that binds a country together in times of crisis. Nero is only the fifth emperor of Rome and ascended the throne a mere ninety years after the murder of Julius Caesar. The idea of the Roman Empire is still comparatively young and fragile, and Nero, like his bloody predecessors, governs his people with stories that assert his own glory, nobility, even divinity. Racine was probably working from a model closer at hand – Louis XIV, “The Sun King”, also wove fantasy and fiction to control the identity of his state – but the practice of national myth-weaving continues to flourish today, from Kim Jong-il to Saparmurat Niyazov, and other leaders of the modern world.

Best wishes for a wonderful New Year,

Gideon Lester
Associate Artistic Director

5_3