Iphis, performed at Corpus Playroom, written by Charlotte Cromie, is a brilliant and thought-provoking adaptation of Ovid’s Iphis story in the Metamorphoses.

In Ovid’s original plot, Iphis’ father Ligdus tells his wife Telethusa that they must kill the child if it is born a girl. They have a daughter, Iphis, whose sex Telethusa conceals from everyone, bringing up Iphis as a boy. When Iphis reaches adolescence, Ligdus arranges for him to marry Ianthe. The two fall in love, with Ianthe unaware of Iphis’ true sex. Iphis, concerned about the problem of the wedding-night and inevitable discovery of her true sex, prays to Juno to help her. Before the wedding, Telethusa and Iphis go to the temple of Isis to pray to the goddess for her help. Isis transforms Iphis into a man. The problem is solved, the marriage takes place and all is well.

However, in Cromie’s plot twist, there is no happy ending; the metamorphosis is only really the start of Iphis’ troubles. Iphis is transformed into a man, but this does not solve her problems; she becomes torn and tormented by the ripping away of her true sex, and she remains within her mind and true self a woman. Telethusa is unsympathetic; after all, she says, who would want to be a woman? After Iphis reveals her story to Ianthe, Ianthe struggles with the lie and cannot at first understand Iphis’ inner torment. Murder and suicide follow. This plot twist makes Ovid’s light-hearted tale into a developed exploration of gender and identity, provoking the audience to think about painful issues through Iphis’ tormented character –a character whose torment and grief at the loss of her identity is very well acted and performed.  

It was not all depressing though. In the moment of understanding between Iphis and Ianthe, when Iphis stands up for her true identity, and when Ianthe finally understands and accepts her spouse, the sense of enlightenment climaxes with an uplifting scene of dance, which says much more than the dialogue is able to. Dance and music are used throughout the play very skilfully to evoke what the actors try and at times fail to evoke with their words.

The set and costumes were extremely basic, and although I found this quite worrying for the first few minutes of the play, I found that as the actors warmed up and came into their characters, the basic nature of their settings in no way hindered the performance, rather highlighted the several very passionate and evocative moments of their performances. Ianthe in particular was very well performed, and a character that is for a large part of the play rather undeveloped and basic ends up taking the audience by surprise by the end of the play, through the well-written and well-performed scenes which display serious depth of thought and understanding.  

The plot has its unsatisfying moments; for example, it is only once Iphis is in her male form that she can avenge the injustice done to her by her father through his murder. Incredibly frustratingly, having gone along with Iphis and followed her troubles and triumphs, the progressive thought realised by the characters’ experiences dies out with them; only Telethusa remains alive by the end of the play, and she is so traumatised that she is lost in confusion and despair, a frustratingly hopeless character.

Ianthe declares that it was all just too much for two people - they lived in the wrong time and wrong place to make sense of the problem and sort it out – but, she says, one day people will understand. The audience plays the role of jury; Ianthe angrily shouts at us ‘How long have you been watching us, judging us?’ The very limited and clean-cut set and costumes allow us to escape the Roman world and to judge what we see in our own context. There’s a nervous sense of embarrassment in the audience as Ianthe so certainly declares that things will be different in the future –we alarmedly wonder, and hope that she’s right. Cromie’s twist on Ovid’s original forms a deep and serious exploration of serious issues –a thing which I doubt the playful Ovid would have at all approved of, but a thing which made for a very enjoyable and thought-provoking experience for the audience.