Phaedra(s)

Phaedra, in the plural. Under Euripides, she never even encounters Hippolyte to declare her love for him and dies rather than confront him. Under Seneca, she speaks to him - eye to eye - of her love. In the hands of Sarah Kane, anything is possible and yet nothing is: despite their physical proximity, the loved one remains as inaccessible as ever. So who is Phaedra, and what does she say to us?

Krzysztof Warlikowski, once again at the Odéon following on from his productions of Un Tramway and La Fin (Koniec), takes one of J. M. Coetzee’s intuitions as the basis for his explorations: “those who repress desire do so because their desire is sufficiently weak for it to be repressed”. In order to embody the mystery of all the various Phaedra, he has turned to Isabelle Huppert.