Persona at Belvoir St Theatre

Adena Jacobs’ staging of Ingmar Bergman’s film packed out houses at Melbourne’s Theatre Works in 2012. It was one of the finest pieces of theatre in the country all year.

Elizabeth is an actress. One night, in the middle of Elektra, she falls silent. Nervous breakdown? Spiritual crisis? Illness? Attention seeking? No-one can say. She is sent to the seaside to recover. As Elizabeth’s silence continues, her nurse Alma begins to speak and Bergman’s signature themes kick into life: enigmatic acts of love and kindness, dangerous heights of obsession and need…

Persona pulls off a remarkable feat: it recreates the famous intimacy of the great Bergman’s finest film on a stage. This is a consummate theatrical close-up about our basic human need to be seen and known by another person.