Cécile Neeser: “In Praise of the Minor: Carole Fréchette’s Ismène (2023) and the Poetics of Self-Effacement” & María Sebastià-Sáez: “Contesting the Stepmother Myth: Flugencio Lax & Eva Torres’ Fedra en el laberinto (2021)”

Abstract:

When approaching Classical Reception and Myth-criticism, several methodologies can serve as analytical tools. Canonical authors such as Blumenberg and Levi-Strauss discuss, in their works, the concepts of mythemes, archetypes and mythical consciousness. On the other hand, present scholars engage with the idea of mythopoetics, which, according to Véronique Gély, does not assume that myths precede or exist independently of literature but rather examines how texts both create and are shaped by myth. In addition to these theories, an analysis focused on the characters, their ethics, and social engagement can be conducted. In this sense, Cécile Neeser and María Sebastià Sáez will analyse Carole Fréchette’s Ismène (2023) and Flugencio Lax & Eva Torres’ Fedra en el laberinto (2021), two reinterpretations of classical myths with a strong gender perspective.

Described by the critic George Steiner as “the blonde, hollow one”, Ismene, Antigone’s sister in Sophocles’ tragedy, has long been read as a bland, conventional woman who serves, at best, as a foil designed to highlight the moral strength and transgression of Antigone. However, since the early 2000s, and within a broader literary context marked by a renewed attention to minor––and, particularly, female––figures of classical mythology, Ismene has been at the centre of several rewritings of the myth. Yet the revaluation of this secondary character is not without tension and raises both aesthetic and political questions. To what extent can Ismene escape the subordinate position she occupies within the binary structure that binds her to Antigone? What does it mean to grant enunciative centrality to a minor figure? And can such a voice ever be fully centred, or does it remain constrained by the very framework it seeks to undo? In her presentation, Neeser will look at one of the most recent rewrites of Sophocles’ Antigone, focusing on Ismene: Ismène, a monologue by Quebecois playwright Carole Fréchette (2023), and try to answer these questions.

Traditionally, drama performances of the Phaedra myth have displayed this female character as a paradigm of a demented stepmother, consumed and driven by a passionate furor. Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, the Phaedra myth has maintained a significant presence in the Spanish theatrical landscape. In her talk, Sebastià-Sáez will explore Fedra en el laberinto (‘Phaedra in the Labyrinth’), a version written by Fulgencio M. Lax in 2019 and staged and directed by Eva Torres in 2021. This rewrite furthers the Greek myth¾and subsequent versions¾by portraying Phaedra as a prostituted woman at the hands of her husband/procurer, Teseo; while, she hopes to be liberated by her stepson,

Hipólito. In this reinterpretation, Phaedra¾and other mythological women: Aricia, Enone, Ismene and Panope¾suffer gender violence and sexual slavery in a brothel where they are confined. Therefore, it will be analysed how Phaedra’s character transcends her mythological origins to confront a critical problem in Spanish society nowadays: sexual abuse and slavery towards vulnerable women, especially foreigners, in the prostitution establishment.