Cate Blanchett asked audience members to stop recording Electra/Persona during its National Theatre run, making the request directly from the stage after a performance.
She did not criticize people for taking a quick curtain-call photo. Her concern was filming the show itself and changing the experience for other theatergoers.
What Cate Blanchett told the audience
Blanchett said: “There are few places on this planet where we can simply be together and be present. I understand you like filming the curtain call, and it is kind of flattering in a way. But for anyone who is filming the show, please don’t, because it spoils it for the next group of people who come in and are present with us. So thank you very much.”
The full comment is warmer than a short headline might suggest. She thanked the audience, accepted that curtain-call filming can feel flattering and drew the line at recording the actual performance.
That request is also practical. A bright phone screen can distract people sitting nearby, while recorded scenes can circulate before later audiences have seen how the production handles its biggest moments.
Electra/Persona changes every night
Blanchett stars with Nina Hoss in a production that brings together Sophocles’ Electra and Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 film Persona. Benedict Andrews wrote and directs the stage version.
The two leads do not play the same roles every night. Before each performance, a coin toss decides who will play Electra and Elisabeth and who will play Clytemnestra and Alma.
That means two people can attend on different dates and see a different arrangement at the center of the show. It also explains why the company is especially careful about recordings that present one night’s version as the only version.
Ella Lily Hyland is also part of the company, and Oscar-winning composer Hildur Guðnadóttir created the music. The production combines an ancient family tragedy with Bergman’s story of an actor who stops speaking and the nurse assigned to care for her.
The National Theatre run continues through October
Electra/Persona is playing in the National Theatre’s Lyttelton Theatre through October 10. The changing roles make the production unusual even for audiences familiar with Blanchett and Hoss.
The filming request does not create a ban on every image connected with the show. Blanchett specifically separated curtain-call recording from filming during the performance.
Her message was simple: enjoy the show, let the people around you enjoy it and do not record scenes that another audience has not yet experienced.
For a production built around live choices and two actors exchanging roles, that request fits the work. The company wants each audience to discover its version in the theater rather than through a phone clip posted from the night before.
