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Didaskalia Kanes
cleverest change is to reverse the myth, in which
Hippolytus' chastity becomes his impenetrable
barrier to Phaedras desire. At a stroke,
this deflects the accusations of implicit
misogyny sometimes laid at the door of the
Hippolytus myth, where in Euripides and Seneca
for example, it is the ungovernability of female
sexual desire that powers the drama. In
Kanes version Hippolytus is a virtual sex
addict, but empty and unable to feel any passion,
a kind of misanthropic stereotype of a nihilist.
Phaedra can certainly have sex with him if she
desires, as he doesnt have much objection
to the process, or indeed, who it is it with;
whether Phaedra, Strophe or a random man in the
royal garden. But for Hippolytus it is only ever
that: a physical process bereft of emotion,
meaning or significance...
Is the play therefore a black
comedy with overtones of farce (indeed it has
some of Kanes funniest lines and she was,
despite her reputation, a very comic writer)? Or
is it a moral fable about the sudden power of
love, or the need for love to promote change in a
world where all significance has been eroded and
where it would appear that, as in T.S.
Eliots The Waste Land:
death has undone so many?
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Alison Croggon 10 Nov 2004 Yet
in his monstrous boredom, his disgust with the
falsity of everything that surrounds him,
Hippolytus is also a curiously attractive
character. Behind his joylessness and refusal of
any human contact lies a desire for absolute
honesty, a ruthless integrity which will have no
truck with a world that disgusts him. The only
time he shows anything like wonder is after he
hears of Phaedra's suicide: "She really did
love me... Bless her." And it becomes clear
that Phaedra's accusation of rape against him is
not the act of revenge that it appears to be, but
a gift: the orgy of violence which follows is, at
last, a real moment, in which there is no trace
of human deceit. Hence his final words: "If
there could have been more moments like
this."
Phaedra's suicide is the logical result of the
fire which has so consumed her, her abnegation
the utter loss of self which is, as Kane
perceived, tragically attracted to its opposite,
the self that will compromise nothing. The
gravity exerted by these extremes detroys
everything around them - Phaedra's daughter
Strophe (Fabianne Parr) is raped and murdered by
Theseus (Peter Roberts) in the final carnage. But
Kane's humour here is wicked: the murders of the
Royal family are represented as a barbecue, with
Hippolytus' genitals becoming a gruesome sausage.
Kane's grand guignol violence contains a serious
critique, of classical theatre as much as of the
nature of human love and the dilemma of the self.
It's in eight tautly written scenes, which move
rapidly to its horrifying and obscenely funny
conclusion.
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Varsity,
Felicity Poulter, 2 Nov 2001
(link has gone- www.varsity.cam.ac.uk) When I left this
production I had been converted, not just because
I realised that Kane's play could actually be
quite good in the right hands, but because I had
been proved wrong about the limitations of
theatre as a medium. This production is bizarre,
perhaps bemusing, but brave. Despite its
credentials it's actually quite a fun night out
and it might even make you think too.
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The
Oregonian, Richard Wattenberg, 17 Jan 2002
(link has gone- www.oregonlive.com/artsandevents) While she harks back to
the mythic Phaedra and Hippolytus story in
"Phaedra's Love," her interpretation of
the tale is nothing like the Seneca version that
inspired her. Nor is it similar, other than in
rough outline, to the Euripides or Racine
versions. Kane's play is set in a modern world
where brutal sex, pointless violence and
faithless hypocrisy are the norms. Here, church,
state and mob are equally infected by vicious
duplicity.
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