Sophie Rois as an ancient heroine

The Kleist Forum in Frankfurt (Oder) is showing another performance of "Phaedra's Honor" with Sophie Rois and Campbell Caspary on 20 November. The production by Italian philosopher, author and director Agnese Grieco, on whose book of the same name the play is based, is an approach to an ancient heroine who could not be more contradictory and fascinating.

Due to a curse from Aphrodite, Phaedra, wife of the Greek hero king Theseus, is doomed to fall in love with her stepson Hippolytus. However, hunting is much closer to the Amazon's son than any love. Spurned and wounded in her honor, Phaedra seeks revenge and becomes a murderer and suicide.

Who is Phaedra? She is not a do-gooder, not a heroine like Antigone or Cassandra, but also not a sinner, not an ageing, pining stepmother. Phaedra is an amorous, mischievous, intellectual dark lady. In antiquity, she is depicted as a woman on a swing. Phaedra swings eternally in the void. Between honor and shame. Knowledge and delusion.

"Between soft tones, clever thoughts and hysterical outbursts, Sophie Rois pulls out all the stops." (Märkische Oderzeitung)