Phaedra’s Love By Sarah Kane- An Analysis
Sarah Kane’s play ‘Phaedra’s Love’ (1996) begins with detailed stage directions,
‘He sniffs…He feels a sneeze coming on and rubs his nose to stop it…It still irritates him’
The audience expect the mundane when the protagonist Hippolytus examines his socks,
He picks up another sock, examines it and discards it…He picks up another, examines it and decides it’s fine.’
Then we are shocked and slightly appaled when,
‘He puts his penis into his sock and masturbates until he comes without a flicker of pleasure’
We can tell that one of the plays purpose is to shock when soon after this outrageous start to the play, another taboo is brought up soon after, the subject of incest;
Doctor: ‘Does he have sex with you?’
Phaedra: ‘I’m his stepmother. We are royal.’
Doctor: ‘Are you in love with him?’
Phaedra: ‘We’re very close.’
The fast paced script gets more graphic as it continues,
Phaedra: There’s a thing between us, an awesome fucking thing, can you feel it? It burns…(I) Want to climb inside him work him out’
The play has six main characters, and most of the play examines the interaction between them, one of the most interesting is the contrast of Phaedras’s adoration and desire for Hippolytus and his indifference and dislike towards her,
Phaedra: ‘I love you’
Hippolytus: ‘ No’
Phaedra: ‘So much’
Hippolytus: ‘ Don’t even know me’
The protagonist is decribed as a, ‘heartless bastard’ several times yet we are intrigued by his savage yet apathetic response to everything, similar to the other characters in the play, we are repulsed by him but want to understand him. He is uncompromisingly immoral and this is thought provoking for the audience,
If there is a God, I’d like to look him in the face knowing I’d died as I’ve lived. In conscious sin’
His immoral and shocking attitude seems to spread to the other characters, characters that are expected to carry out a duty to uphold his morality, his step mother, and a priest who after trying to teach him to seek salvation, then performs oral sex on him.
As well as being shocking to the audience it seems to deliver the message that corruption is everywhere and morality is dying out and is futile. The play is littered with blasphemy and expletives,
‘Die, scum’
‘Royal Raping Bastard’
The dénouement is bitter and violent describing violently, first Theseus raping and killing his daughter and then Hippolytus’ death,
‘He cuts Hippolytus from groin to chest
Hippolytus’ bowels are torn out and thrown onto the fire
He is kicked and stoned and spat on’
The end when Hippolytus manages a smile at his own death is disturbing and vile and again makes us question the characters in the play and also ourselves.