Unbetitelt

The Play I saw was about the ancient Greek myth of Phaedra, I didn‘t know that one before I saw the Play and I still understood everything but I‘m not gonna pass up an opportunity to tell people about greek mythology so here you go: Phaedra was the daughter of Minos and Pasiphae and the sister of Ariadne. She married Theseus (there are different versions as to how) but Theseus had a son, Hippolytos, from an earlier marriage and Phaedra fell in love with him (in some versions because she was cursed by Aphrodite) but he rejected her so she killed herself and pretended Hippolytos made advances towards her.

The play differs from this myth, Hippolytus doesn‘t appear but the main plot is still somewhat similar. The short summary is: Theseus found a bride for his older son, who is supposed to inherit his throne, though Theseus doesn‘t actually want to let him have it yet. When the bride, Persea, comes to Athens she and Phaedra fall in love and have an affair but they are caught and in the end Persea is killed as a human sacrifice in a celebration for the gods that the new high priest convinced Theseus to have.

I did some research about the name Persea, that wasn’t necessary but I am going to tell you about it anyway. First of all the most obvious connection would be that “Persea“ sounds like a female version of „Perseus“ but honestly I can‘t see a lot of connection between them so I kept looking. I came upon the name Perse, she was an oceanid (daughter of Oceanus) and married Helios, the god of the sun before Apollo „took over“. That connection could somewhat be relevant later, but I‘ll mention it then. Apart from that she had a few children, one of which was Pasiphae!!! I thought that was really exciting since that is Phaedra's mother and then I read up on Perse‘s other children and was at risk of basically reciting every greek myth ever here and also very badly probably trying to make a family tree but I will not be doing that. Anyway Perse was also sometimes called Persea and the point of this is just that maybe the writer of the play looked for an ancient greek name that had anything to do with Phaedra and came upon Perse and even if not I think it‘s cool that this connection exists.

Okay I’ll start the analysis now.

The stage was in the shape of a kite, with holes in the floor about half a meter apart. On the right side (from the audience) was a pit with red sand/rubble, arranged in the shape of flames. On both sides and the back of the stage were huge projector screens.

The play started with Phaedra sitting alone on the stage, in the pit filled with sand. She was wearing a very voluminous pink dress/robe. In this scene she was monologuing about how awful her life had become and everything she wanted to tell Theseus off for, when he came on stage and told her about how he had found a bride for their oldest son Demophon. Theseus was wearing brown/grey, faded leather pants and a bear fur over his shoulders, which he laid on the ground like a carpet. They then argued about the high priest Theseus had recently appointed and who wanted everything to become much more traditional again. After this fight Theseus left and their second son, Acamas, was introduced (he wore black and white shorts and a short-sleeved T-Shirt) and they „played a game“ of telling each other scary stories, which Phaedra took as an opportunity to tell her son the “scary story” of her life, with how useless and alone she felt and that it seemed like all her life was already over and didn't matter at all and that she had never done anything for herself.

After this the soon-to-be king, Demophon, came on, wearing a white painters overall with multiple zippers, and immediately started a fight with his brother to show the audience that they absolutely do not get along.

The next scene was a time skip to the arrival of Persea. Phaedra had left the feast arranged for this occasion when the high priest appeared and during their conversation revealed his intention to start sacrificing humans to the gods again. The way Phaedra talked about her husband and the whole experience made it very clear once again how resentful she was towards her life and that she did not want to keep fulfilling the duties expected of her as queen, but also the relationship between her and the priest and how he is constantly influencing Theseus and therefore separating him and Phaedra even further from each other because their opinions towards him are so different (Theseus listens to him all the time, Phaedra does not trust him at all). When he was coming on stage the high priest was wearing a black oversized suit jacket and very long, very wide and also voluminous pants which made a kind of trail behind him because of their length and was carrying a long metal pole, which he put into a hole on the stage, he would have a pole with him every time he appeared.

After this interaction, which the priest left by saying he should go, so the spot next to the king won‘t be empty any longer, therefore once and for all making it clear that the both of them are in a kind of competition for Theseus‘ trust, Persea came on stage. She was wearing a short light green jumpsuit with dark red/brown leggings and so was the only person apart from Phaedra really wearing colour. This scene, to me, was one of the most interesting ones plot-wise, because Phaedra and Persea talked so much, about pretty much everything. Persea told Phaedra that she didn‘t need her to take care of her all the time, which would have been the customary thing to do, as she supposedly already knows what is expected of her: smiling, looking pretty, not talking, supporting her husband, but she said all of this while also being convinced that she could cater to her own interests, be her own person as well. Phaedra noticed this and became angry, telling her, in a similar way to the „scary story“ she told Acamas, that she will not achieve any of that and will wonder where her life went in a few years just as Phaedra was doing now. Apart from characterizing Persea as a young girl who still has a lot of hope for her future and also her own head, the scene was interesting to me because of the way it showed how Phaedra had basically already lost all her hope. In the first scene, the monologue, The audience got the impression that Phaedra would have done it all different if she could go back and I therefore thought she would also be somewhat supportive of Persea and help her manage everything, but to me it seemed like seeing Persea so sure of herself made Phaedra somewhat resentful of her because she saw what she could have been, had she tried harder to stay herself.

In the next scene some time had passed again. Persea and Acamas were in the thermal bath (the sand pit functioning as a pool) talking and getting very close when Phaedra came in, and saw them, she made Acamas leave then and „changed“ her costume (took off the pink dress/robe to reveal a dark blue nightgown). Persea and Phaedra had a long conversation again, during which Persea tried to kiss her but Phaedra rejected her (for now). In this scene we also learned that Persea knows a lot about plants and some healing. Things like this are often associated with magic and witchcraft. I thought this was interesting because the oceanid Perse, who I think Persea might have been named after, is sometimes called the mother of witchcraft because all her children with Helios had magical powers. Since one of these children was Pasiphaë, Phaedra's mother, this made for another interesting connection between the two, and tied Persea into Phaedra's old life.

After this encounter the setting switched to Phaedra and Theseus, with Phaedra begging him to send Persea back home and choosing a different wife for their son, in my opinion this was probably her having what we would call „gay panic“, because she realised her feelings for Persea and them getting stronger, but of course didn‘t know what to do with them so she tried to remove the factor that caused this, Persea, from her environment. Theseus however did not go along with her wishes. During all this Phaedra also finally started voicing some of her griefs towards Theseus, how she was always alone, scared he wouldn’t retire and let Demophon become king and that she knew how much Theseus cheated on her, but he disregarded all of this and treated her like she was just hysteric or sick, following one of the main themes of the play: women not being taken seriously and not having real autonomy in their lives.

The next scene was undoubtedly the most visually impressive one, where the screens that provided the scenery really came into focus. It was another scene of Persea and Phaedra in the thermal bath, but this time during the night. At first they were just having a conversation, both getting somewhat angry. Phaedra about Persea‘s continuing advances and Persea about the fact that Phaedra was still denying the connection they both had. This part of the scene was in the normal stage light but then it got much darker and the screens changed to all show a blood red moon my first instinct to interpret this being that it was an omen and something bad was going to happen, but I read blood moons were also viewed as the moon needing to be taken care of, which would fit with Phaedra being left to herself for so long but also a path to exploring our „darker“ emotions, which could also fit as they were doing something forbidden (it‘s never touched upon in the play if homosexual relationships were forbidden, I don‘t think they were in actual ancient greece but at the very least it must have been a tabu for the queen to have an affair with her son‘s soon-to-be wife). In this darkness (which was leading up to the sex scene, if you couldn‘t tell, idk how to write this I‘m sorry) the actresses actually took off all their clothes, which I didn‘t expect but it was very different from other sex scenes I‘ve seen in plays (for example the Heather‘s sex scene is completely different). There were sounds like a fire crackling somewhere, which like the blood moon I interpreted as a bad omen, though it can also have been a metaphor for Phaedra‘s desire finally awakening again after so many years and fit with the arrangement of the sand in the pit from the beginning. Additionally there were also pre-recorded bits of the actresses reassuring each other and overall being very sweet while they were taking different positions but not in a hectic way, it was all very calm and also somewhat surreal.

When the scene ended and the actresses left the stage, there was a kind of foreshadowing on the screens. They all showed police dogs running into an abandoned house, looking like they were searching for someone or something in a green light that looked like night vision goggles and was also a very jarring difference to the red light from the moon before. These videos were of course a hint that Phaedra and Persea had been spied on and someone knew what they did and the next scene already gave you a hint who.

Persea was emptying bags of red sand into the pit and raking it over, probably representing the garden she‘d mentioned that she wanted to plant, when Acamas came in. The actress of Persea was still only wearing a very see through white dress and quickly started putting her green jumpsuit over it again. They both began to talk but it was vastly different from the first scene between the two of them, where they were being very close. Acamas started complaining that he was sure his father and brother wanted to send him to the military and became suspicious when Persea didn‘t join him in complaining about them but instead said that it might be good for him. Acamas confronted her about this and specifically about all the time Persea spent with his mother but she just dismissed it, left and so made Acamas even more sure that his family had conspired against him.

With Acamas left in this state and still on stage, the high priest appeared with another metal pole he put into the ground. He found Acamas sitting on the floor and talking incoherently about someone committing sins and was of course very eager to find out more. Acamas, still convinced he was to be sent to the military, was scared and so made the priest promise him to get his father to let him do an internship (?) at the temple, if he told the priest what he knew, which he did and so Acamas told the high priest about seeing his mother and Persea in the bath through a small hole he had made in the wall. The priest went straight to Demophon with this information. At this point there were already seven of the metal poles in the ground of the stage, making a triangle with one open side in the front left (from the audience) corner of the stage. When the priest told Demophon about his mother‘s and Persea‘s affair he got angry, but at first not at them but at the priest. The actor of Demophon somehow managed to make his eyes look really crazy in this scene, which contributed a lot to him looking very intimidating, as he was also a lot taller than the priest. He also pulled one of the metal poles out of the ground, pointed it at the priest and even, while they were standing next to each other, hit him in the chest with it. Apart from finding out about the affair Demophon also got very angry when the priest suggested that he would not become king as soon as he was married, pointing to all the other instances his father had told him he‘d become king after and then didn‘t, but the priest was able to use this against him quickly and suggested they make Phaedra say she was put under a spell by Persea so then after this scandal Theseus would have to give up the throne and Demophon really could finally become king.

They went through with this plan and the next scene was Theseus losing his mind about it while Phaedra was just standing there, taking all his insults. She had changed into a glittering long gold dress with a short trail, which might have been a reference to the origin of Persea's name, since the original Perse‘s husband was the titan of the sun and he was also Phaedra's grandfather. Phaedra only spoke up to say two things and she sounded very exhausted and beaten down during this. First she told Theseus that she had been happy with Persea for the first time in years and so then she told him she would do what the high priest had proposed: say Persea had bewitched her in the temple magazine for the whole kingdom to read, but only if they released Persea after that so she could go back to her home country, which the priest and Theseus agreed to.

Finally it was the day of the big celebration for the gods, where the first human sacrifice in a long time should occur, supposedly chosen by the people of Athens in a vote. During this scene only Phaedra and the priest were on stage, both standing between two of the metal poles each. Phaedra, still wearing her dress, was just staring ahead apathetically, the priest also had a slightly different costume, he didn‘t wear the suit jacket or the very long, very wide pants anymore, instead a kind of dress, also in black. He was describing what was happening below, at the celebration, to Phaedra. Finally the point came where the sacrifice was revealed to be Persea. The priest described her white dress, how Demophon tried to help her but was held back by Theseus and then how she tried to run from the dogs but didn‘t make it and so how they tore her apart, all this he described like a sports commentator, sounding excited and even ecstatic. When Phaedra understood who the sacrifice was, she left the spot where she was standing and went to sit on the edge of the sand pit, saying in a broken voice how they had promised her Persea would be safe and the priest just replying that the people had chosen her after Phaedra‘s statement in the temple magazine.

The final scene had Phaedra still sitting at the sand pit but the priest had left and instead, her family appeared. First Acamas, saying how he had killed the dogs that killed Persea, asking Phaedra if he had done right. Then Demophon and Theseus and when Theseus suggested he would stay around advising Demophon during his starting time as king, Demophon realised his father really would never let him be king as long as he was alive, he got angry and declared he‘d leave. Acamas now begged his father and brother to send him to the military but they ignored him. Through all of this, Phaedra just sat in the pit, stared straight ahead and said nothing. The others left the stage and it was finally only Phaedra. She stood in front of the back screen with her back to the audience, the lights dimmed and the close-up image of a sun appeared on the screen and started spreading until it stretched over all of them.

This got very long because the play itself was very long but I want to mention a few more things. First the poles the high priest brought on stage. To me, they represented his influence and how it was spreading and finally building a cage around Phaedra and her family. When Demophon took one of the poles out while being angry at the priest, there was some hope that his influence could be broken but he failed, ultimately. Before that there was a small scene of the priest and Phaedra having another conversation, which I didn‘t mention here and there Phaedra also took out a pole, trying to break the priests influence and at the very beginning, Acamas once almost walked into one of the poles while leaving the stage and looked at it confused and while that might have been an accident I thought it was very fitting.

The way the actors talked was also very intriguing. Sometimes it sounded like the dialogue was straight out of a classic greek play but then, often while people were fighting, they were talking normally, like we would, using very vulgar language.