A Phoenix Too Frequent

A Phoenix Too Frequent is a one-act stage comedy in blank verse by Christopher Fry, originally produced at the Mercury Theatre, London in 1946.

The play depicts a grieving widow in Ancient Greece gradually finding the attractions of a young soldier outweighing her determination to join her husband in the underworld.

In April 1946 the theatre staged a double bill, comprising the first British performance of The Resurrection by W. B. Yeats and the world premiere of Fry's A Phoenix Too Frequent.

[3] He took the title from Robert Burton's translation of lines from an epigram of Martial, lamenting his lost love, in comparison with whom "a peacock's undecent, a squirrel's harsh, a phoenix too frequent".

Dynamene, encouraged by her maidservant Doto, gradually finds Tegeus so attractive that she opts for life with him rather than death with Virilius.

[11] A production directed by John Crockett toured Britain in 1950 and 1951, presenting the play in a double bill with Chekhov's farce The Proposal.

[11] A later American production was staged by Writers Theatre in 2001, directed by Michael W. Halberstam with Karen Janes Woditsch as Dynamene, Sean Fortunato as Tegeus and Maggie Carney as Doto.

The cast comprised Dinah Shearing as Dynamene, James Condon as Tegeus and Audrey Teesdale as Doto.

[23][24] Between 1959 and 1966 adaptations were transmitted by television stations in Switzerland (1959, featuring Ingeborg Luescher, Beatrice Schweizer and Wolfgang Schwarz),[25] Finland (1960),[26] West Germany (1963, featuring Dinah Hinz, Charles Brauer and Angelika Hurwicz),[27] Austria (1966, with Christiane Hörbiger, Carla Hagen and Walter Reyer),[28] and Australia (1966, featuring Lynette Curran as Dynamene, Sean Scully as Tegeus and Fay Kelton as Doto, directed by Oscar Whitbread).