Fedra, Queen of Haiti

POOL SHARK Brooks eyes her prey.

Photo: Sean Williams

A split-level pastel-colored set with an inlaid pool, a goddess whose wrath erupts in echoing booms: From its opening, Fedra reflects Lookingglass’s commitment to sumptuous production values. But the passions on display in this updated version of Racine don’t always reach the operatic heights of the decor. In transforming Phaedra to Fedra, ensemble member Brooks has moved the setting from mythic Greece to a vaguely specified future, in which Haiti has become a world power, birds have apparently disappeared and the truest badge of hip is owning a collection of “ancient” Star Wars DVDs. None of this filigree has much impact on the tragic plot, which remains, “Queen falls for stepson, queen’s husband returns, trouble ensues.”

More significantly, Brooks has dramatically condensed her French source’s speechifying. One can understand why: However much the Sun King’s court may have luxuriated in strings of alexandrines, Racine’s Phaedra now risks coming off as theatrically inert. But Fedra’s concision comes with its own cost. Without wallowing in the depths of her erotically charged despair, Fedra, as played by Brooks, seems merely fickle and vindictive. No doubt those are fair descriptions, but Racine’s fraught language lends grandeur to her flaws. Brooks’s version, by contrast, seems relatively perfunctory. None of its signature events carries a cathartic heft. The piece stays at the level of its decorous pool: a seductive spot for toe dipping but nowhere anyone could drown.

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