Sadie Shimmin as Hermione and Deirdre
Edwards as Cleone
Andromache
performed at the Donmar Warehouse after a national tour.
What the critics said:
"idiomatic, accessible, even racy - the violent
human heart revealed in its vulnerability" - Daily Telegraph 10/8/84
"strong and sinewy without being showy, [the translation]
takes you briskly and smoothly to the sense and dramatic
purpose - the language is timeless, expressing directly
an emotional truth that would be equally valid in the
Trojan wars or 17th century France - or in the 1930s" - Guardian 11/8/84
"provocatively colloquial, prosy and abrupt" - Observer 27/1/85
"as in a black and white film, the events emerge in
dramatically lurid contrast" - Sunday Telegraph 27/1/85
"a tough, idiomatic translation" - Sunday Times 27/1/85
"held the audience silent and spellbound" - Daily Telegraph 22/1/85
"makes the opaque alexandrines sound as if the tragedy is a play by T.S. Eliot rewritten by Anouilh, which can only be a relief" Punch 6/2/85
"witty and dark, grasping the elusive ironies" - Observer 24/1/88
Company wins Olivier MOST PROMISING NEWCOMER award for this and the two other shows .
A production of Andromache in a revised form was performed in Oxford in September 2021 by the Oxford Theatre Guild.
Racine