Not for the faint hearted but was certainly gripping and worth the effort to attend. (Review by Di Matthews)Phaedra's Love, running in the Courtyard Theatre until August 14, is written by Sarah Kane (19971-1999). The play was commissioned by David Farr (former artistic director of the Gate Theatre) and is a reworking of Lucius Annaeus Seneca's classic Phaedra.
First written and directed by Kane in 1996, the play was well received. The use of graphic language and content is meant to shock the audience into feeling the tension on stage while being critical of social discourse and systems of meaning.
The play follows the tragic Queen Phaedra's obsessive desire for her impenetrable stepson, Hippolytus, whose distrust and boredom with his family's social standing and systems of meaning reflect a concern with the human experience and the struggle for meaning and power.
Directed and designed by Marcia Peschke, the play was well acted by the 1st, 2nd and 3rd year Durban University of Technology (DUT) students and produced in a contemporary society. The music was also modern and appropriate. This work is not for the faint hearted but was certainly gripping and worth the effort to attend.
The students in the audience were something of an irritant for giggling immaturely in inappropriate places, but fortunately did not mar the evening.
Phaedra's Love runs in the Courtyard Theatre on the Steve Biko Campus in Mansfield Road until August 14 nightly at 19h00. – Di Matthews
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