About the Play:

Phaedra (English language version of Phèdre) is a full-length tragedy by Jean Racine, translated into English verse by Richard Wilbur. A brilliant translation of one of the most influential works of French theater, Phaedra is rendered into movingly expressive verse by the Pulitzer Prize-winning translator of Racine and Molière. Here the subject at issue is the tragic fate of a woman of noble lineage who is undone by passion, jealousy and guilt – and the implacable vengeance of the gods.

Phaedra is based on a legend that has intrigued dramatists as far back as Euripides (in Greek) and Seneca (in Latin). The Greek heroine Phaedra, the second wife of Theseus, the king of Athens, suffers a fateful unrequited longing for her stepson, Hippolytus. At first Phaedra attempts to deny her attraction for the handsome young Hippolytus, but when word arrives that her husband is dead, Phaedra sexually pursues her stepson, much to the shock and dismay of Hippolytus. She is rebuffed as he is deeply enamored of another. When Theseus then returns unharmed, Phaedra connives in a lie to convince her husband that it was Hippolytus who attempted to seduce her. The stage is set for fury and grief, guilt and remorse. In his seventeenth-century interpretation, Racine replaced the ornate, stylized tragedy based on classic Greek form with human-scale characters and actions convincingly motivated by human emotions. Acclaimed translator Richard Wilbur describes in his lucid, informed introduction the method by which he remained faithful to Racine’s form and intention. The result is a triumph of translation, poetry, and theater.

Phèdre was first performed in 1677 at the theatre of the Hôtel de Bourgogne in Paris, and is considered by many to be Jean Racine's greatest work. Richard Wilbur's subtle verse translation Phaedra premiered in 1990 at the Third Stage during the Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario.

Cast: 5 female, 3 male

About the Playwright:

Jean-Baptiste Racine (1639-1699) was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Pierre Corneille as well as an important literary figure in the Western tradition and world literature.

Richard Wilbur (1921-2017) was an acclaimed American poet and literary translator. A former chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and United States Poet Laureate, he is one the 20th century's most eminent American poets and literary translators. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry – twice – among many other awards. He also established himself as the finest translator of Molière's plays and his verse translations have been performed for audiences throughout the world.