The Phoenician Women

This is a very depressing play again by the director Katie Mitchell (She directed the awful Endgame at the Donmar recently). She must really love this morbid kind of drama. I found the play started interestingly enough as the scene was set with the horror of what Oedipus had done, but after a while there was just too much misery , crying and heartache for my liking.I know tragedies are supposed to be like this, but after so long you no longer feel sympathy for the characters because it goes on and on with their misery until you get immune to it.

There are no props used in this play at all, not even a chair! Not all plays need props though, but this play needed something. The only part I enjoyed was the singing, it was very relaxing.

There is not a programme to the play, why I don't know nor did the officials bother telling us why. In fact you could not even get a cast list until the end of the play. The play lasts two and a half hours with no interval.

(Darren Dalglish)