The story of a woman who falls in love with her stepson during her husband's absence is eminently suited for presentation on the 20th Century stage, especially if the play is one of the classics of world literature. If the heroine's mother and grandmother are supposed to have had intercourse with bulls, the play will be acceptable to the most discriminating modern, Freudian audiences.

Director Edward Morris faced two problems in deciding to stage Racine's Phedre, the Hamlet of France, at Harvard: the dearth of good French speakers--not to mention French actors--in the community, and the limited facilities available to him. But last night's dress rehearsal indicated that Morris had overcome both his obstacles.

Although the background of the play was intended to be majestically awesome, the 17th-century playwright succeeded in putting the almost divine myth into the classical framework of an uncomplicated plot and simple, moving language. Morris' innovation lies in the exaggerated, expressionalistic gestures he has his actors execute. This grotesque motion serves as a counterpoint to Racine's majestic lines, and gives the actors an opportunity to do more than recite the well-worn alexandrines.

Morris is helped achieving dramatic effect by Jeff Murray's costumes and Yoshiaki Shigemitsu's scenery. Shigemitzu's simple, straight-line sets imitate the movement of the actors.

The only flaws in the acting are on the part of the minor characters, who sometimes mouth their words or shuffle about the stage. The most difficult part, that of the heroine, is done unassumingly and well by Nadine Duwez. Roger Kline, a veteran of the Harvard French stage, puts the most emotion in the part of Thesee, the deceived husband; and Robert DeLancey plays Hyppolite, the stepson, with a competent, dramatic voice. All of them, as well as Mrs. Claude Carey as Aricia, speak French with surprising fluency.

Rounding out the cast are Mrs. Anna Becker, Harry Bingham, Dorothea Bingham, and Tess Isenbergh. The task of most of these actors consist of circling the tage as gracefully as possible.

Although it does not attempt to compete with the Comedie Francaise, where Phedre has had over a thousand performances, this production reaches near the limit of foreign-language drama at the University.