Bérénice

'Bérénice' is the fifth of nine plays written by Jean Racine between 1664 and 1677 before his sudden and still unexplained decision to give up the theatre. One of Racine's favourite themes is that of unrequited love, in this case that of Antiochus for the Palestinian queen Bérénice who is the lover of his friend Emperor Titus. She is disapproved of by the populace and Titus, faced with rumblings of discontent, reluctantly decides not to marry her, sever all ties and dismiss her from Rome. Racine's dramatic masterstroke lies in Antiochus being obliged to give her the bad tidings.

The eternel problem of performing Racine is that the style of acting required of actors at the time it was written would be both mystifying and unacceptable to a modern audience. How does one make it 'natural' without sacrificing the nobility of its glorious, heroic Alexandrine verse?

Ironically Racine's acute psychological penetration and restrained passion admirably suit the medium of film providing the actors resist the temptation to declaim.

No such worries here as the leading players are Gérard Depardieu, Carole Bouquet and Jacques Weber. The character of Antiochus is rather thankless but Weber does his best. It is the pairing of Depardieu and Bouquet as Titus and Bérénice that is most fascinating. Her character is supposed to be older than he but Depardieu has not aged well and Bouquet has worn extremely well! They are both excellent actors however and their long term, off-screen relationship gives their scenes together a definite sexual tension and a palpable chemistry.

I would not like to say how effective Mlle Bouquet would be on stage in the role but for the camera her performance is magnificent.

Master screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriére has adapted the piece and director Jean-Daniel Verhaeghe has wisely chosen to keep it within the proscenium arch whilst also observing the classical unities of time and place. The characters are flesh and blood and the wonderful verse still comes through.

The play has sometimes been criticised for its 'lack of incident' and Racine himself confessed to have made something out of nothing. No small achievement!

This play may have been a hit several hundred years ago, but it now comes across as five hours (Oh? Was it not that long?) of much ado about very little. Titus loves Berenice, Antiochus loves her, she doesn't love him, Titus has to send her away from Rome , but doesn't want to, and so on, and on, and on.

It was not helped by having two aging French actors playing the leads. Poor old Jacques Weber as Antiochus was dull, as always, and overweight Gerard Depardieu, then in his mid-fifties, was hardly convincing as the 35-year old Titus. Even a relatively young and beautiful Berenice (actually the historical Berenice was 12 years older than Titus, that is, 47) could not save this turkey from drowning in its own flood of verbosity.