Britannicus

Bertolt Brecht had his own definition of electricity: it's the thing that made a work crackle and come alive onstage.

It's too bad then that the great German dramatist weren't alive today to a pay a visit to the American Repertory Theatre to see just what he was describing in Britannicus, the vividly theatrical adaptation of Jean Racine's little-seen 1669 play being presented at the American Repertory Theatre.

It grips from its onset, and holds its audience in an intense hold for two intermissionless hours. It is completely understandable why there's no break in the action - the tension is like something out of a Hitchcock film.

But it is another filmmaker - Douglas Sirk - that comes to mind while watching the machinations of the Emperor Nero and his mother Agrippina as they wrestle for control of the Empire. They appear to have walked right out of one of his glossy 1950s movies. Even the production's look, with its modular furniture, chic fashions and use of color and shadow suggest Sirkian melodrama.

That, though, is only part of the reason why this proves to be such an extraordinary evening of theater. What director Robert Woodruff has done, working from a clear-eyed English translation by C.H. Sisson, is use every device at his disposal to create a Roman court awash in treachery and deceit. This is I Claudius territory given new life in Woodruff's unique vision; and the vast Loeb stage can barely contain its fragmented beauty and power.

Racine's story chronicles the quest for absolute control of Rome by the young emperor Nero, who came to the throne through the devious plotting of his mother Agrippina. (She may be one of the few theatrical characters to hold a candle to Lady Macbeth.) In the play's back-story, she married the Emperor Claudius, succeeded in having her son Nero adopted by him and made his favorite over his legitimate son Britannicus. She may have even poisoned her husband to make her son Emperor. Once on the throne, the power struggle between mother and son unfolds, and comes to involve the guileless Britannicus, his lover Junia, and the duplicitous Narcissus, Britannicus's tutor. To consolidate his power Nero has Junia kidnapped, which infuriates Agrippina who has promised her to Britannicus.

Racine was to have based his play on historical records, but he obviously takes some dramatic license in the developing the struggle between mother and son. Needless to say while the outcome may be predictable, the execution is not. Woodruff surprises the audience at every turn, underscoring dramatic scenes with evocative video images that enhance the dramatic moment, and with an eclectic mix of music, from soprano arias (from, I presume, Handel's opera Agrippina) to minimalist piano riffs and jarring rock chords. This is Woodruff at his most expansive, and his carefully realized aesthetic is staggering to watch.

Central to his vision is the notion of power, and how it corrupts absolutely. "Empire creates its own reality," reads a huge banner on the rear of stage, bringing to mind the insulated courts as diverse as Louis VIX, who is likely to have seen Racine's drama when it was written, to such contemporary examples as Queen Elizabeth II and President George W. Bush (another ruler with parental issues of his own when dealing with governing.)

Nero's master plan is to boldly grab the reins of power from the mother he both hates and loves; and his cool machinations are given a human dimension in Alfredo Narciso's spidery performance. His Nero has a sexy allure, but also an ugly brutality that makes him an ambivalent monster - he's a seductive creep you fall for despite your better judgment. Joan MacIntosh matches him every step of the way with her larger-than-life portrait of Agrippina. She's a diva, quite a nasty one at that, and her performance has a grandness right out of old Hollywood, but tightly reined in as to not to dissolve into camp. (She also bears a striking resemblance to actress Sharon Stone, which underscores her movie star-like approach to her character.)

Though slightly too old to play the Britannicus, Kevin O'Donnell brings passion to the trusting teenager victimized by his conniving half-brother. There is an icily cool turn by David Wilson Barnes as the slippery Narcissus, and a heartbreaking one by Merritt Janson as the doomed Junio. Adrianne Krstansky, as Agrippina's consort, shines in her final monologue, putting into her voice the horror reflected in her blood-soaked dress; and Megan Roth adds immeasurably to the production's mysterious air with her gorgeously sung arias that act as haunting respites in this gripping drama. Riccardo Hernandez's design work is also exemplary, smoothly integrating panels on which videos are projected into his modern-day rendering of the royal chambers. That is only one component of his strikingly cluttered rendering of Rome, in which one is always aware of the theater's artifice. Christopher Akerlind's lighting captures the harsh edge of Woodruff's vision, creating the stage equivalent of a high contrast image; and Kay Voyce's costumes shrewdly capture the inner-dimensions of each character. The multi-media aspects are splendidly realized in David Remedios's precise sound design and Leah Gelpe's video projections. Without their contributions Woodruff's stunning aural and visual landscape could not be made.

But if anyone should receive praise for this dynamic production it is Woodruff, who has fashioned a play that resonates with intelligence and spine-tingling theatricality. His vision of Racine brings to mind another exercise in Gallic treachery - Pierre Choderlos de Laclos's Les Liaisons Dangereuses (brilliantly dramatized by Christopher Hampton) - but does so with an even far wider, and profound world view. Over the years Woodruff has brought to ART stages some inspired stagings that challenge his audience with his rigorous aesthetic, You need only think of such diverse works as Brecht's In the Jungle of Cities, his uncompromising take on Sophocles' Oedipus, or Edward Bond's harrowing Olly's Prison to appreciate his conceptual approach to works, as well as his rapport with actors and designers. That he brings out the best in them may be his testament as a theater artist. Happily he exits the ART with this spectacular piece of stagecraft in which he uses every tool at his disposal to create a disturbing portrait of a world-out-of-joint. Here the political becomes personal, with tragic, yet mesmerizing results.