The first Stage II production for the spring semester will be Phèdre, directed by Hal Kohlman, adjunct professor of theater and performance.
The play is written by French playwright Jean Racine, who adapted it from classic Greek and Roman mythology.
The play takes place in ancient Greece. It centers around “Phèdre,” the queen of Athens, who struggles after being cursed by the goddess of love, Aphrodite. Phèdre must fall in love with her stepson, “Hippolytus,” who does not return her affections.
Reily Preston, acting senior, plays Phèdre. She said Kohlman and the actors are trying to make Greek theater more approachable.
“He wants to see what we bring to the table and how we can flesh out these people and make them real and not make Greek seem so daunting while also bringing the heaviness of the story,” Preston said. “I think people that are wary of Greek or classical should go see this play because I think it is contemporary in a way. We want the text to be more conversational and to be more accessible and understandable.”
Kohlman said the play’s translation helps make it more accessible to a modern audience.
“The play was originally written in Alexandrine rhymed couplets,” Kohlman said. “But the translation we are using is a blank verse translation, so it really is just like normal people having a conversation, so there is sort of modernization to it.”
Kohlman said it’s good for the campus community to be exposed to classical works like Phèdre.
“It’s good for the university to be able to see classical drama show up on the stage every now and then and talk about whatever is brought up in that classical drama, and how that may or may not have contemporary relevance,” Kohlman said.
Preston said the play has some relevance to modern times.
“I can see it kind of fitting into the Me Too movement and maybe the sides of the stories where women accuse men but it’s not accurate,” Preston said. “I think it’s really hard to tell that side of the story because you want the women to tell the truth, you want them to be the good guy, but she is almost like the bad guy because she schemes and she gets Hippolytus into trouble.”
Phèdre will be performed at 8 p.m. Jan. 24-26 and at 2 p.m. Jan. 27 in the Black Box Theater in Wanda L. Bass Music Center.
School of Theater students can reserve free tickets at the box office located in the Edith Kinney Gaylord Center. Everyone else can purchase tickets for $5 at the box office or at okcu.edu/tickets.
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