Timberlake wertenbaker love of the nightingale

This article is about the play. For the opera based on the play, see The Love of the Nightingale (opera).

The Love of the Nightingale is a play by Timberlake Wertenbaker, commissioned for the Royal Shakespeare Company and first performed in 1988 at The Other Place, Stratford.^[1] It is an adaptation of the Ancient Greek legend of the rape of Philomela by her brother-in-law Tereus, and the gruesome revenge undertaken by Philomela and her sister Procne.

Timberlake wertenbaker love of the nightingale

The play takes a feminist look at the ancient tale.

Synopsis

The King of Athens, Pandion I, fights a war with Thebes over land. The King of Thrace, Tereus, helps out Pandion, and in return, Pandion allows Tereus to marry Procne, one of his two daughters.

Procne obeys reluctantly. She is not attracted to her taciturn soldier of a husband, and she dreads being parted from her beloved and spirited sister Philomele. When she reaches Thrace, she struggles to adjust to life, as the women assi