The representation of Jean Racine’s “Andromaque” in Brussels at the Theâtre des Martyrs in 2025 has been an interesting choice, because the revival of a 17th century tragedy dealing with the intricacies of the Greek and Trojan war (mostly remembered for the Trojan horse). Jean Racine turned French theatre back to tragedies with his Andromaque (Résumé and analysis in French!), rather than the comedies or tragi-comedies of previous great authors like Molière.
The literary analysis of Andromaque by Roland Barthes (“Sur Racine”, 1963) identified 3 separate locations: chamber, anti-chamber and exteriors. The real power seems to live in the chamber as the place of respect, but also terror. (Compare also Mithridate). The anti-chamber is the place of diplomacy and the place of exchange of ideas, information and strategies. The exterior world is mostly closed off through walls or balconies as views from above. For Barthes this “symbolizes” even the prison inside or the pure heroic life inside the walls.
Besides this 29th century interpretation of 17th century theatre, Racine is remembered for his tragic love stories where A loves B, but B loves C and, maybe C falls in love with A. (Compare Robert Horville, 1991) The Condorcet paradox (Science of it) described only formally in the 18th century enlightenment, many decades later, had proven mathematically that such combinations of personal preferences are impossible to resolve. Hence, these confusions are great stuff for tragedies to evolve live on stage.
