Phaedra's Love

By Robert Iles - 25th Oct 2005

Sarah Kane's "Phaedra's Love", originally performed at The Gate in 1997, is a stark piece of "in yer face" theatre. Of course, our faces are a lot harder to get into nowadays, audiences seek out extremes with a "do your worst" attitude to see just how far the production company can take it. The shame is, Phaedra's Love is actually a very good play, powerful, thought provoking and well constructed, but I think that that sometimes gets lost when its is seen as part of the stories of Sarah Kane and In Yer Face theatre rather than a work in its own right.

Ok, take a deepth breath, and .... Theseus, the King, has gone away (after having sex with his step-daughter, Strophe, on his wedding night) leaving his wife Phaedra in charge. She is completely infatuated with her stepson Hippolytus who, as the Prince who can have everything, is bored with life, love and himself. After sexually gratifying Hippolytus and being told that she's not as good as her daughter and that her husband and daughter had sex accuses Hippolytus of rape and kills herself. Hippolytus sees this as rescuing him from the depths of his boredom and accepts the role of hated criminal with glee, meanwhile the rabble become a mob and call for his blood. Theseus, returning home and finding Phaedra dead swears revenge against Hippolytus but when a girl pleasds for his life he rapes and kills her, only to find out it is Strophe, so he kills himself. Typical Greek drama!

Many of the scenes were delivered with an unwordly flatness that helped pace us to the inevitable climaxes. At least I'm assuming that that was a part of the direction rather than just flatness in performance; it worked, I hope for the right reasons.

It is a tale of blood and sex, of raw, powerful, overwhelming love, rage and sorrow, of mob violence amd destruction .... this is one time it would not have been over the top to have had blood everywhere and sex on show. We have to feel how the mob feels, become part of that mob and yet we didn't.

Hippolytus (Laurence Penry-Jones) was a bot too good looking and not nearly gross enough but was very credible. Phaedra (Diana Kent) is an excellent part and was well taken but Strophe (Alexandra Moen) on the other hand was totally unconvincing ... in yer face does not mean leaning forward everytime you speak ;-)

In the end, this production just didn't give the play its head. I don't think directors should shock for the sake of it but this is a shocking tale, starkly told and we need to see the horror and be horrified by it. Love the play, not wholly convinced by the production.