Phaedra's Love

-Phaedra’s Love, by Sarah Kane at the Arcola Theatre.

            It was loud, it was in your face, and to be brutally honest, it was predictable. My first impression upon entering the dungeon that is the Arcola was “this can only go two ways, this can be stellar or this can be horrific.” And I was wrong. The entire experience was merely mediocre. I cannot find too much fault with the technical design, because we really felt as if we were in the pits of society, which enhanced the feeling of Hippolytus’s malaise (excepting the moment when the staircase collapsed, that was a bit distracting). But I feel the fault lies mostly, and sadly, with the script itself. All of the sex scenes were expected and boring, the motivations were forced and ludicrous, and the reactions lacked any depth or insight, or really, any glimpse of humanity. This play really needed more palpable pain, which could be the actress’s fault playing Phaedra, or more likely, could be Sarah Cane being more obsessed with a futile attempt at jazzing audiences with the spectacle of ‘shocking’ material. The acting was on point however, especially the daughter and Hippolytus; I could relate to Hippolytus even if I could never actually be anything like him myself. The one exception to this rule would be Phaedra’s first pseudo-soliloquy to her daughter about her ‘burning passion’ for Hippolytus which, instead of disgusting me or perhaps intriguing me, simply rendered me ambivalent. The overall arch of the story left much to be desired. When Sarah Cane gutted Hippolytus she removed the reasons why the events occurred the way they did. Instead of bloodlust and revenge causing the deaths of an innocent character, it was hinted that love spurred Phaedra on to her greatest present ever, an undeserved death for Hippolytus at the hands of his own father. The material even upon reflection isn’t so shocking or disgusting as it is contrived and illogical. No one could feel ‘fulfilled’ via such absurd and uncontrollable factors; even if Hippolytus was excited by the turns of events he had no reason to be suicidal simply because he was bored.

In fact, some of the best plays out there deal with the horror of the absurdity of life, Pinter/Beckett et al, and even if the characters find themselves trapped, there is something in the resistance of the absurdity, however futile, that is beautiful. So perhaps yes, I was disgusted, not by the sex or the killing or the “drama,” but rather by Sarah Cane’s own nihilism and weakness in the face of life. Not to be crude, but perhaps killing herself was only the logical conclusion to her own outlook that seriously needed a few major adjustments in ethos. Constructive Criticism? If Cane had made Phaedra more conflicted, maybe just a single scene where she had a serious conviction to resist her love, or some sort of regret for loving her son-in-law, something could have been salvaged. Or perhaps some actual characterization of Hippolytus, the dad, the daughter, or anyone, that would help too.