Berenice

Translated from Jean Racine's B©r©nice by Rosie Hilal

By: Jean Racine, Rosie Hilal (Translator)

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Paperback | 22 May 2025

At a Glance

Paperback
88 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
21.59 x 13.97 x 0.53

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Berenice is an academically rigorous, poetically sensitive and politically hard-hitting translation of Jean Racine's celebrated 17th century tragedy.

An adapted version of her text with movement was first staged in 2018 in a co-production between Theatre Forge and Exchange Theatre as part of Voila! Europe theatre festival under the title Becoming Berenice with original drum and bass music by Tomas Wolstenholme to sold-out audiences.

Unusually retaining the original French structure of rhyming 12-beat couplets, or Alexandrines, this modern English version seeks to highlight the Western colonial expansion in the Middle-East against which the story plays out, and of which we are arguably reaping the ever more violent repercussions.

This tale of one woman's emancipation in the face of star-crossed love is the first English translation of this European classic by a woman and a person of Middle-Eastern descent.

Industry Reviews

"I loved everything about it: [An] excellent translation." - Dr Nicholas Hammond, Professor of Early Modern French Literature & Head of Cambridge University French Dep.

"I loved the translation very much. I loved the way they mixed the music with the verses. It was glorious. Really - in French we say 'sensible', I don't know the word; sensitive? Delicate?" - French Londoner, Applecart Arts - Voil ! Europe Theatre Festival 2018

"I really, really liked the movement. [...] And not that I know any French, but it sounded like a really good translation to me. The language was really strong." - British Londoner, Applecart Arts - Voil ! Europe Theatre Festival 2018

"I thought that was a very witty and graceful and speakable text, capable of holding big passions." - Dominic Dromgoole, Previous Artistic Director at the Bush Theatre, The Old Vic and Shakespeare's Globe

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