Theatrical lecture Module

“PHAEDRA’S LOVE”

by Sarah Kane

“Phaedra’s Love” was written by Sarah Kane. It was first presented at the Gate Theatre, London, on 15 May 1996.

The most important characters of this play are: Hippolytus, Phaedra and Strophe. We know that the characters are from a royal family thanks to the marginal notes given by the writer as “royal birthday” (page 70) and “royal palace” at the beginning of the play. Hippolytus is a sex addict. He has sex with women and it seems with a man too. He masturbates with his socks. He has an untidy room, all over his room there are socks and underwear. His stepmother, Phaedra, is in love with him. She wants to have sex with Hippolytus, but he refuses her. Strophe is Phaedra’s daughter. She is in love with Hippolytus too. She does not want that her mother to have sex or any relation with Hippolytus. There are some characters that are also important. Theseus, the king, in my opinion, is Phaedra’s husband. He appears at the end of the play. He is very sensitive with what occurs. The Doctor, who tells Phaedra to forget Hippolytus. The Priest, who talks to Hippolytus about what he has done (but in fact does not do anything).

At the beginning of the play Phaedra is talking with the Doctor about Hipolytus. He tells Phaedra that he is depressed, “He’s depressed” (page 61-Scene two). The Doctor asks Phaedra to guess the reason why Hippolytus is depressed. He (the Doctor) asks her what Hippolytus does and she answers that he has sex and watches films (page 62) and the Doctor asks if she has sex with him or if she is in love ith him, Phaedra denies it. After this, in the third scene, Phaedra is talking with her daughter, Strophe, about the same subject, Hippolytus. Strophe tells her mother to forget him and her mother asks things about him but Strophe is not interested. But really, Strophe is in love with him, too. Phaedra tells her daughter that she loves Hippolytus, “I want him.”(page 68). In the fourth scene, Phaedra goes to Hippolytus’ room to give him some presents because it is his birthday. He talks about sex. Little by little Phaedra tells him that she is in love with him. She even has oral sex with him. But he refuses her. He tells her that he has sexual relations with her daughter. In the following scene Hippolytus is talking with Strophe about having had sex with her mother, because Phaedra says that he has raped her. He admits it. Phaedra dies. Then, a Priest (in a prison) talks to Hippolytus. He says that Phaedra committed suicide, (page 87). He is not interested and he “undoes his trousers” and the Priest “performs oral sex on Hippolytus”, (page 91). Then, in the seventh scene, “Phaedra goes up in flames” (page 92). Afterwards some people and Theseus want to kill Hippolytus because they think that he has raped and murdered his stepmother. A man “cuts off his genitals” (page 95) and Strophed defends him. Theseus kills Strophed and after he is sorry about it because he does not know that Phaedra committed suicide and Hippolytus did not murder her. Theseus kills Hippolytus too.

The space in which the play is performed is varied, that is to say, I think it is performed in a castle, in a doctor’s clinic and in a prison cell. There are some marginal notes that verify it, on page 86 for example, “A prison cell”. There are more marginal notes about the movements of the characters, (page 85) “looks at her”, “Theseus enters” (page 92).

I think the time can be guessed by some marginal notes at the beginning of the play. The writer tells us that Hippolytus was “surrounded by expensive electronic toys”. I think the time is the same as the writer, who wrote the book.

On many occasions the language is very spiritual and beautiful, as in the conversation between Hippolytus and the Priest, but during the whole play, principally Hippolytus uses a street language, “fucking …” he refers to a lot of things as “fucking”.

To conclude, I liked this play because it is easier than others to comprehend and because the issue is very different from the others that I have read and it is a issue that not many authors can write about because it was a taboo issue. Is interesting reading different themes, you realised how complex the world is.