{"id":5512,"date":"2026-08-04T22:05:39","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T22:05:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=5512"},"modified":"2026-08-04T22:05:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T22:05:39","slug":"cate-blanchett-nina-hoss-on-the-friendship-driving-elektra-persona-at-londons-national-theatre-theres-a-lot-of-masking-and-unmasking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=5512","title":{"rendered":"Cate Blanchett, Nina Hoss on the Friendship Driving \u2018Elektra\/Persona\u2019 at London\u2019s National Theatre: \u2018There\u2019s a Lot of Masking and Unmasking\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\u201cElektra\/Persona,\u201d the U.K. National Theatre production fusing Sophocles\u2019 \u201cElektra\u201d with Ingmar Bergman\u2019s \u201cPersona,\u201d grew out of friendship rather than a directorial concept imposed after casting, according to director Benedict Andrews.<\/p>\n

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\n\tAndrews, Cate Blanchett and Nina Hoss spoke at a BFI Southbank conversation held ahead of the play\u2019s run, moderated by \u201cThe Guardian\u201d chief film critic Peter Bradshaw following a screening of a restored 35mm print of Bergman\u2019s 1966 masterpiece.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cElektra\/Persona\u201d runs at the National Theatre\u2019s Lyttelton Theatre from Aug. 19 to Oct. 10. In Sophocles\u2019 \u201cElektra,\u201d the title character mourns her father\u2019s murder and waits for her brother, Orestes, to return and help her avenge it at the hands of their mother, Clytemnestra. In Bergman\u2019s \u201cPersona,\u201d an actress, Elisabet, falls silent mid-performance and is sent to recuperate on a remote island, where a nurse, Alma, is assigned to care for her and the two women\u2019s identities begin to blur. Andrews\u2019 production stages \u201cElektra\u201d in its first half and \u201cPersona\u201d in its second, with Blanchett and Hoss alternating between Elektra and Clytemnestra, and between Alma and Elisabet. The cast also includes Ella Lily Hyland. The production is staged by arrangement with Music Theatre International on behalf of the Ingmar Bergman Foundation.<\/p>\n

\n\tAndrews described the production\u2019s structure, with Blanchett and Hoss playing all four roles across the evening and swapping nightly.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt wasn\u2019t an idea of like, either Cate or Nina should be Elektra or Elisabet,\u201d Andrews said. \u201cYou would cast it very differently; you\u2019d cast an older Clytemnestra, arguably you\u2019d cast a younger Alma. The idea that in this piece about doubling and mirroring, the idea that they should become each other, and literally that that idea is embedded into our production with them playing both the roles and swapping the roles nightly, that\u2019s built into the muscles and the fabric of the production.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAndrews said the collision of the two source works was only part of what drove the project.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAnd so, I think the idea was then for us, beyond my fascination with the collision of these two pieces, the idea was born out of friendship, and the idea was born out of our delights in being in rehearsal rooms together, the things we bring out from each other in rehearsal rooms, the way that we all push each other and the text in rehearsal rooms, and the way that we share the idea of a rehearsal room being a search and an experiment,\u201d Andrews said.<\/p>\n

\n\tAndrews also noted the extent of his history with his two leads. \u201cCate and I, I think this is our fourth time working together,\u201d Andrews said. The pair\u2019s previous collaborations include \u201cThe War of the Roses\u201d (2009), \u201cBig and Small\u201d (2011-12) and \u201cThe Maids\u201d (2013-14), staged with the Sydney Theatre Company. Andrews directed Hoss in \u201cThe Cherry Orchard\u201d at the Donmar Warehouse in 2024.<\/p>\n

\n\tAndrews said his fascination with the pairing stemmed from Bergman\u2019s own position at what he called the \u201chinge or intersection of theater and cinema\u201d \u2013 the director ran Stockholm\u2019s Dramaten theater while making \u201cPersona,\u201d stepping down the same year the film was released.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI felt you can\u2019t \u2013 it\u2019s difficult to stage \u2018Persona\u2019 in a way on its own, because it\u2019s so singular, and in such a strange atmosphere,\u201d Andrews said. \u201cIt\u2019s like another planet, like a kind of vacuum. And the idea that it would have this counter-energy, this feral, muscular violence of the Greek drama format.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tBradshaw asked how the pair protected their mental health while juggling both plays and swapping parts nightly. \u201cI had a breakdown today!\u201d Blanchett said, drawing laughter from the audience. Both actors insisted they were fine, though Hoss said the two had turned to each other that afternoon and agreed neither could imagine doing the production with anyone else. Blanchett cut in that the sentiment applied \u201cevery afternoon,\u201d to more laughter.<\/p>\n

\n\tHoss said she does not approach the four roles as conventional characters, but as facets of \u201cthe same spirit,\u201d with each actor\u2019s choices reshaping what the other can do in turn.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of masking and unmasking,\u201d Blanchett said. \u201cWe were talking today, too, about persona being a mask. The word persona. But that also, the ancient Greek word for actor comes from hypocrite: to reveal or to examine under a mask some form of truth, that\u2019s often an uncomfortable truth. And of course, didn\u2019t have any pejorative meaning at all then. But Clytemnestra wears as many masks as other people do. Even Elektra does, she wears the mask of grief, and who is she without that mask of grief? And Clytemnestra\u2019s got her own grief, so there\u2019s a bit of a \u2018grief-off\u2019 between the two women!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBradshaw raised the ambiguity of the film\u2019s central letter, in which Elisabet leaves an envelope open for Alma to read, and asked whether Bergman was showing a darker, more sadistic side of his heroine.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think we are constantly in a state of knowing and not knowing simultaneously, wanting to hide and wanting to be revealed simultaneously,\u201d Blanchett said. \u201cI think that\u2019s part of being alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHoss offered a different account of the letter scene, characterizing it less as calculated cruelty than as an act of curiosity that shifts the power balance between the two women once Alma reads it.<\/p>\n

\n\tAndrews said the piece\u2019s swapped-role structure demands generosity from both actors, requiring each to relinquish the instinct to defend her own character\u2019s position within the mother-daughter conflict at the center of \u201cElektra.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBFI Fellow Blanchett was credited by Bradshaw with helping secure the 35mm print for two screenings that evening.<\/p>\n

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Cate Blanchett, Nina Hoss and Benedict Andrews on how friendship, not casting, shaped the National Theatre’s Sophocles-Bergman mashup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[885],"tags":[4318,4319,4320,4321],"class_list":["post-5512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-theater","tag-cate-blanchett","tag-elektra-persona","tag-national-theatre","tag-nina-hoss"],"yoast_head":"\nCate Blanchett, Nina Hoss on the Friendship Driving \u2018Elektra\/Persona\u2019 at London\u2019s National Theatre: \u2018There\u2019s a Lot of Masking and Unmasking\u2019 - Relocation Observer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=5512\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cate Blanchett, Nina Hoss on the Friendship Driving \u2018Elektra\/Persona\u2019 at London\u2019s National Theatre: \u2018There\u2019s a Lot of Masking and Unmasking\u2019 - 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