Published in the Sunday Tribune, July 13, 2008

Jason Byrne’s production of the late Sarah Kane’s play, ‘Phaedra’s Love’, is a brazen success. From the opening scene of the young prince Hippolytus slumped in an armchair in front of the tv, masturbating into a sock, to Phaedra’s hips and heels, to ‘Tainted Love’ on the soundtrack, to the ritualised violence of the extraordinary closing scenes, it lurches between louche cool and a deeply moral sense of horror with relentless economy.

The play is based on the classical story of Phaedra, wife to the king, Theseus: while Theseus is away, she falls in love with her step-son, Hippolytus; he rejects her; she hangs herself, and leaves a note claiming he had raped her; Theseus returns and kills his son. Kane tells the story with the curt efficiency of news bulletins, condensing it to 50 minutes. In the process, it becomes a modern, existentialist drama rather than a Greek tragedy. It is a depressive fantasy: Hippolytus, the boy who has it all, cares for nothing, indulging in bored hedonism and bullying simply to prove how pointless social mores are. It is only when Phaedra’s actions unleash the circumstances leading to inevitable tragedy that he finds meaning: bored by his casual abuse of others, the scale of the coming violence against him gives him moral purpose.

It is performed in effortless naturalism across the whole of the Project’s main theatre: we sit on benches along the four walls, the walls and ceiling are draped in white, and the lighting is bright throughout. This simple, though stunning design (by Ciaran O’Melia) is as effective a means of implicating the audience in the moral content of the play as any cruder technique.

Kane’s play, with its layers of jagged, emotional drama and stunning set-pieces, is an ideal vehicle for Jason Byrne. And like the play, his production is not seamless, but it is audacious.

At the Project Arts Centre, Dublin.