Phaedra's Love by Sarah Kane

"Can't switch this off. Can't crush it. Can't. Wake up with it, burning me. Think I'll crack open I want him so much."

Phaedra

PHAEDRA'S LOVE

THE PLAY

"You're difficult. Moody, cynical, bitter, fat, decadent, spoilt. You stay in bed all day then watch TV all night, you crash around this house with sleep in your eyes and not a thought for anyone. You're in pain. I adore you." Phaedra

First performed in 1996, Phaedra's Love is Sarah Kane's modern adaptation of Seneca's Phaedra. It was her second play and through the affair between Phaedra and her stepson, Hippolytis, Kane explores obsession and the cruelty of love.

THE WRITER

“PHAEDRA'S LOVE, which she also directed, saw her continue the process of fragmenting naturalism...It is also the first of Kane's plays to deal explicitly with what was to become her main theme: love" David Greig, Introduction to Sarah Kane Complete Plays, 2001.

Sarah Kane was born in 1971 and had a brief, intense career from 1995 to her death in 1999. From her first play, Blasted, the young writer was generally met with disdain and even found herself in the tabloids, as well as the arts pages - condemned as a playwright simply out to shock.