Bring Phaedra back to life, big deal.
Oh they're mad arrogant crazy - ungodly!
A Poor Madwoman an adultery wrong-way-round love!

Sacrilege, sacrilege! Euripides, Seneca, Garnier, Pradon, Racine, Gabily, Minyana, Enquist, Durif, Kane, who next? Monsters! Candidates? Rewrite a great passionate love story within the spheres of power. Closer to us, just as far: Vitez, Bondy. Monsters! To stage and re-stage, to wallow in the shameful sin. To dust off the wigs in order to put them in the museum.

A secondary school teacher, married with children, sacrifices everything - husband, friends, job, shame - for the love of one of her young students. Also, she is blonde and pretty, and he is a short, dark-skinned little upstart, vaguely North African. She is sentenced, but persists in her error and the monstrousness of her love. Prison does not destroy her love.
What is to be done with this woman and this boy?

A title role overloaded with references for the actress who picks up the gauntlet.

In 1970, E. Riva's voice quavers with poor diction. I never succeed in listening all the way through this double compact disc, rescued from oblivion - I am torn between wanting to laugh and fear.

A proud and humble act of defiance: when did we last see an apparition of Phaedra north of Paris? Who dares to caress the National Theatrical Monument? To give its guardians a beating. Our own attempts since 1998 for this project to perhaps see the light of day in 2002 Rehearse and return to work. Pick up the fabric again. Repeat.

Nowadays, the increasing turnover in love relationships generates new and unusual situations: it is no longer rare to see stepmothers of a second marriage displaying to advantage an age lower than or close to that of their stepchildren. It is therefore inevitable that romantic catastrophes come to light or fade away within the secrecy of the home.

With Eugène Durif, we constantly ask ourselves the question: will we succeed in staging or re-staging Phaedra? Does it still have any interest? Can we still make ourselves understood? When will she really reappear before us?
In April, then June 2001? In the second half of 2002?
Never? And we'll have to wait until then, not to die bringing her back to life?
This desire for a play and a character, this wait, the foundation of Eugène's work and of our agitated efforts, we will push to the extreme, we will bring Phaedra's insane desire back to life, people will shout out to us to either get to work or to be quiet, but nothing will be half-hearted. Then we'll have to persuade her to show herself, to return among the living. Never?

Subts! Are you going to sit down at the back of the drama class again!
Will you accept this lost journey, with death at the end, do you believe in eternity, do you know what it is to return among the dead? You have to have strength to come back and sit down at the table. Everyone, author, director, actors, subsidisers, co-producers, buyers and audience, all of us have to be worthy of Phaedra.

Subts, September 2000