Excellent Suicides. Ajax and Phaedra at the Greek Theatre of Syracuse

For the 59th season of classical drama put on by the Syracuse National Institute of Ancient Theatre two fifth-century Attic tragedies were staged: Sophocles’ Ajax directed by Luca Micheletti and Hippolytos Stephanophoros (Hippolytus the Wreath Bearer) directed by Paul Curran, to which was given the title of Phaedra. Ajax and Phaedra are two heroes of ancient myth with similar destinies. As they have (for very different reasons, however) both lost their honour, they decide to take their own lives in order to avoid public shame. In both cases the staging gives rise to singular consequences. Micheletti’s interpretation of Ajax is a strikingly emotive one, played entirely on the character’s physicality. On the other hand Curran’s Phaedra gives precedence to the psychological dimension, not only by bringing out a personal tragedy in which she is overcome, in spite of herself, by passionate love and suicide from shame, but also the drama of Hippolytus with his inflexible moralistic and sexophobic dogma, not to mention that of Theseus who is too quick to draw conclusions and to reach irrevocable conclusions so causing his punishment, the death of his son.