Abstract

Theater
Disch, T.M. | January 23, 1989 issue

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"Phaedra Britannica," is an inspired adaptation of dramatist Jean Baptiste Racine's "Phaedra," by the British poet and playwright Tony Harrison, who transposes the story from the author's eternally anachronistic Louis XIV Greece to a seductively probable India circa 1850. He does not effect this transposition by the mere fiats of set design and costumery, such as is customary on the opera stage. Harrison follows Racine in the overall arrangement of scenes, and his pentameter couplets crackle with electricity or slide by liquidly at levels of speed and intensity approximately Racinean, but Harrison allows himself the liberties he needs to give point and pungency to his Raj parallels.

See Also:

PHAEDRA Britannica (Theatrical production); RACINE, Jean Baptiste; THEATER; HARRISON, Tony; DRAMATISTS; DRAMA
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