Phaedra's Love: "In-Yer-Face" Drama

Expecting an “in-yer-face drama” performance, I was thoroughly prepared for the production when I walked into the theatre to watch Sarah Kane’s Phaedra’s Love. The simple, dark set secludes the audience from the rest of reality and allows them to be fully absorbed in the reality and psyches of the characters. I sat on the right side of the stage, further from the performance; the floor seats surrounding the stage seemed to allow the audience to have more interaction with the characters of the production. The play opens with its main character, Hippolytus, watching the news and he confronts the audience with the bleak fact of the world’s suffering and its negligence of it in the presence of a royal birthday. The trivial ordeals of a select group of people take precedence over the suffering of the masses; a commentary on the recent royal wedding of 2011 in Great Britain and the ways in which it was presented in the media. 

The performance from the man who played Hippolytus was effective. He portrays the character as painfully aware of the brutality of humanity and the pointlessness of life. Additionally, although the actor may not have fit the play’s physical description of himself as an overweight person, his attractiveness made Phaedra’s obsession with him a bit more believable. I found Phaedra's character, Hippolytus's stepmother, and the performance from the woman who played her to be exhaustingly frustrating and, regardless of its intention, it did not gain any of my sympathy or allow me to feel connected with her in any way. The character exuded desperation and I could not respect her at all. She falls desperately in love with her stepson and loses sight of her marital and societal duties, succumbing to animalistic desire which potentially conveys humanity’s animal-like essence. She seems psychologically unstable herself yet she is concerned with her stepson’s “depressive” condition, alluding to the hypocrisy of humanity and society.

Because I had been warned in advance, I was not very shocked by the “in-yer-face” aspect of the play. If I did feel uncomfortable, it was more during the violent scenes than it was during the sexual scenes. I felt as though the sexual scenes were presented to the audience with slight warning. For instance, the moment in which the priest kneels down to perform oral sex on Hippolytus, the play took an unpredictable, yet predictable, turn. The priest’s yielding to his own sexual desires just further illustrates the corruption of society’s supposed elite and pure. I did wince a bit during the more physically violent scenes which is likely because they uncomfortably portray humanity as a barbaric entity that preys on the weaker, which is suggested by Hippolytus’s scavenger comment at the end of the last scene. 

The play is respectfully provocative and daring. Phaedra’s Love successfully gained my attention throughout the entire play. However, although I was engrossed in the story from beginning to end, I do not expect every viewer to feel the same way about this performance. It gives a depressing and brutal perspective on aspects of life and the world which may be too intense for some audience members to handle.