About Amanda Michalopoulou

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“Phaedra on Fire” is a theatre play, commissioned in 2020 by Athens Epidaurus Festival. Roughly based on Euripides Hippolytus it redefines Phaedra as a woman in search of lost vitality and critically contemplates the role of women in Ancient Greek tragedy, classical literature and the patriarchy. Directed by Yannis Kalavrianos, “Phaedra on Fire” was performed on 30 and 31 of July 2021 in the Little Theatre of Ancient Epidaurus.

“It may sound like a lie: I am His wife,” is the arresting opening declaration made by God’s Wife’s unnamed narrator, who will always be known through her role as an appendage, “at His side.” This premise immediately raises issues of power, domination, truth and belief. God’s Wife is ultimately a meditation on the power of literature to create a space of imaginative play. It is a love story, a philosophical treatise on the nature of faith and divinity, a self-conscious meditation on the nature of writing and creativity, and a feminist tract, all held together by the compelling authenticity of the narrator’s voice. Her voice is, of course, shaped by Amanda Michalopoulou’s inimitably spare and masterfully evocative prose, which, like the narrator’s mother’s brand of storytelling, uses few words and eschews didacticism.

“Tell me about Your wives,” I insist. “How did You choose them? What was their skin like, their eyes, their voice? Which one was the cleverest, which one the nicest? How many were there? Where are they buried?” When I pepper Him with such questions, He finds an excuse to leave the room. God’s way of saying that the conversation is over.