Notes from Source: Every memorable translation is not simply a new rendering of the text but also a fresh reading. [Anne Carson]’s take on “Herakles,” “Hekabe,” “Hippolytos” and “Alkestis” is emphatically that, something she makes abundantly clear in this volume’s afterword — “Why I Wrote Two Plays About Phaidra” — which the translator “attributes” to [Euripides]. Carson also has provided each of the plays with brief but provocative introductions that stand as sort of keys to her intentions and suggestions about these classic plays’ continuing claims on our attention. She accomplishes this most forcefully when the stakes are highest — in Euripides’ masterpiece, “Hippolytos.” Angelenos are particularly fortunate because the world premiere of Carson’s translation of this play is the inaugural production at the new outdoor classical theater at the Getty’s renovated villa. The first preview is tonight, and the formal run begins Sept. 7 and continues through Sept. 30. The Getty Villa itself has mounted an accompanying exhibition, “Enduring Myth: The Tragedy of Hippolytos and Phaidra,” which will be on view until Dec. 4. In the play, the Athenian king Theseus has gone into penitential exile accompanied by his son, Hippolytos, and his queen, Phaidra, who is the young man’s stepmother. Hippolytos disdains physical love and its goddess Aphrodite, and instead he makes ideals of chastity and its patroness, Artemis, the goddess of the hunt. Aphrodite takes it badly and incites Phaidra into a passion for Hippolytos. When the treacherous nurse in whom the queen has confided informs Hippolytos, he denounces his stepmother and all women in a famously misogynistic declaration. Phaidra hangs herself. Theseus, misled into believing that she was raped by Hippolytos, curses his son, who dies as a consequence. Divine and mortal ruminations on fate ensue.

Further Notes: Place: Los Angeles, Calif Publisher: Los Angeles Times Communications LLC