PHAEDRA’S LOVE

AUTHOR: Sarah Kane

TITLE: Phaedra’s Love

EDITORIAL: University’s photocopies.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

In this play we have six different characters. We have two main characters in the play that are Phaedra and Hippolytus.

-Phaedra is the queen. She is married with the kind, Theseus, but she doesn’t see her husband since her wedding night. She has a daughter, Strophe; and she has a stepson, Hippolytus. She is fall in love with him, and she wants to have sex with him, but he does not want to. Strophe tries that her mother forgets Hippolytus. Phaedra does not know what to do. At the end, she dies. She commits suicide and she leaves a note where she says that Hippolitus has raped her and has killed her.

-Hippolytus is Phaedra’s stepson, the son of Theseus and the prince. He is very lazy, layabout, moody, cynical, bitter, spoilt and obsessed with sex. He stays all the day watching TV and playing with his car, and often he has sex with girls that go to the palace, but he likes men, too. He is bisexual. He has oral sex with the priest in prison, and with a man in the garden, too. And also he has oral sex with his stepmother, and in past, he had sex with his sister, Strophe. He is accused to rape his stepmother, and he goes to prison for that. At the end, he dies. He was innocent.

-Strophe is Phaedra’s daughter. She loves her mother, but she knows that she is a little crazy, and for that, she believes Hippolytus when he says to her that he hasn’t raped his mother. She intents that her mother forgets Hippolytus. She was falling in love with him in the past, and now, she hates him. She dies when her stepfather kills her because she knows that Hippolytus is innocent and she says it.

-Theseus is Hippolytus’ father. He is the king, Phaedra’s husband. But he ever isn’t in palace and he always is out. For that, Phaedra says that she loves him and she wants to see him, but she loves more Hippolytus. Theseus appears when the funeral of Phaedra is. He swears that he kills the culprit of the death of his wife. And he goes with Strophe to look for Hippolytus. He orders to a man to kill Hippolytus, his son. And when Strophe says that he is innocent, Theseus kills her, too. After, he cuts Hippolytus from groin to chest. Then, when he sees Strophe and Hippolitys in this way, he claims to forgiveness. And in this moment, he cuts his throat and bleeds to death.

PLOT AND SUMMARY

This play takes place in a royal palace, where live Phaedra (the Queen), Hippolytus (the Prince), Strophe (the Princess), and Theseus (the King). Theseus is always in outside, and Phaedra loves his stepson, Hippolytus. He doesn’t love her, because she is his stepmother. Strophe persuades her mother to forget her stepson, but she is a little crazy for that. And when she sees that Hippolytus rejects her, she commits suicide and gives a note where says that Hippolytus is the assassin. But Strophe believes her brother. Theseus, when knows that is Hippolytus, kills him. Strophe says the truth, and Theseus kills her for defend an assassin. Then, when Theseus sees the bodies in the land, he cuts his throat, too.

SPACE AND TIME

The action happens in a royal palace, in a few days. And then the action happens in the prison, where Hippolytus is, and in the village, where Theseus kills his sons.

LITERARY RESOURCES

This play is easy to read, and the language is simple and very colloquial. And the sentences are short and simple. We can emphasize the language of the sex that appears in all the play (sex, fuck, shag, bitter, oral sex, genital...).

PERSONAL OPINION

In my opinion, this is s good play for us, because it’s very easy to read, the language is common, and it is interesting because you can’t imagine what is the end, or the action…