Phaedra's Love is the second play of Sarah Kane first performed in 1996.
It is a loose retelling of the classical text Hippolytus with Kane's iconic use of violence and taboo subjects - unlike the classic text, it displays the violence on stage. Sarah was commissioned by The Gate Theatre to write it, and she would also direct it.
In this version Phaedra’s doomed love for Hippolytus is retold with him as the central character. He is rude, lazy and dissatisfied with everything. Phaedra's love is rewarded with nothing like she wanted and she lets Hippolytus suffer for his emotional abuse.
While the least performed of Sarah's few plays it does contain her wittiest dialogue.
The Following Play features the following Tropes:
- Adaptational Distillation: In this retelling the Gods don't have anything to do with the piece, the play is set in the contemporary world rather than classic Greece. In fact during the execution of Hippolytus the chorus is a group of Brits that have come for the day out.
- Adaptation Personality Change: All the characters are very different to the source material, Hippolytus is nihilistic due to his upbringing as a Prince, he sees life as a depressing, and no longer feel pleasure in anything.
- Phaedra is a victim in this version even though in this version she gets her desire fulfilled she finds it means nothing to Hippolytus.
- Adapted Out: Unlike the original tragedy, the Gods don't appear and characters like the Nurse are removed.
- Basement-Dweller: The script implies Hippolytus is such: an overweight slob surrounded by pricey toys obsessing over television and Hollywood blockbusters.
- Black Humor: There's a great deal of it and Sarah described it as a comedy.
- Butt-Monkey: Phaedra treats Strophe briefly like one and Hipploytus treats everyone especially Phaedra to great dressing down of herself.
- Cassandra Truth: Like the original play Phaedra accuses Hippolytus of rape, which is a lie. Unlike the source material, Hippolytus dooms himself by being too apathetic to defend against the charges.
- Downer Ending: As with many of Kane's plays, it's not a happy ending. By the end, Hippolytus, Phaedra, Theseus and Strophe have died horrible deaths.
- Downfall by Sex: It's clear that all that sex would be the undoing of Hippolytus.
- Even the Guys Want Him: Despite Phaedra's claims there is nothing Gay about him, Hippolytus doesn't care the Priest who speaks to him in jail performs fellatio in him.
- Fat Bastard: The script describes Hippolytus as fat, and he's an ungrateful, misanthropic, misogynistic Manchild nerd.
- Freudian Excuse: The Doctor claims that Hippolytus is "depressed" and a utter manchild because his Father is away or that he misses his birth mother, however Hippolytus disputes this with his nihilistic viewpoint, summarising it to Phaedra:
- Hippolytus: I was born into this shit, you married it.
- Humans Are Bastards: The detailed way that the crowd tear Hippolytus to pieces shows the way anybody would truly behave if the law allowed them.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Hippolytus tells Phaedra that her love won't change anything for him, he calls her out on her obsession and goes into detail about the life of a Prince is a dull excuse of a life, all his friends and lovers are false. To be Royal is to be in a gilded cage.
- Love Makes You Crazy: Phaedra feels that the love she has for Hippolytus is more than her own for Theseus, she tells him and he delights in telling her, he slept with her daughter and that daughter slept with Theseus it's too much for her.
- Lowest Common Denominator: Just to hammer home how much of a boring, awful derelict deviant Hippolytus is, we're introduced to him mindlessly watching television and basic Hollywood movies that are described to get graphically violent.
- Manchild: Hippolytus eats Pizza with Peanut Butter, incessantly watches television and generic, violent action movies that he jerks off to, and is surrounded by expensive toys he barely plays with. His room is a pigsty strewn with clothes; we're introduced to him using some questionably clean socks he picks off the floor to blow his nose and jerk off with before throwing them back on the floor. He's described as fat, too.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Theseus has this after realising that he has killed Strophe.
- New Media Are Evil: There's an unflattering portrayal of the blockbuster movies that Hippolytus watches on his big screen: they all devolve into disturbing (even for Kane) violence of mindless gratuity.
- Parental Incest: The main subject all the Royal Family are this.
- Rape as Drama: It's a retelling of Phaedra, and as such, it is one of the main plot points when Phaedra accuses Hippolytus of rape, culminating in a rage of mob fury that kills the entire cast.
- Self-Abuse: Hippolytus, a detached, misanthropic psychopath who only cares about base pleasures, regularly jerks off into whatever available clothing is lying near him.
- Sexual Karma: All the Royal Family seems to suffer this in the end, ranging from suicide to being torn apart by an angry mob.
- Shout-Out: Apart from the original myth and classical play it's based on, Sarah Kane wrote quotations from the bible into the text.
- What Does She See in Him?: Hippolytus is a Fat Bastard of a Manchild, hates every minute of his existence, and takes out that hatred on others, including Phaedra. Yet, everybody wants to sleep with him and he sees Phaedra's meaningful confession and finally giving oral sex as pointless.Hippolytus: "There. Mystery over."
