Review: HESPERUS, PHOSPHORUS! at the Ottawa Fringe Festival

OTTAWA

APJ Productions’ Hesperus, Phosphorus! was off to a fantastic start. In Petrograd at the dawn of the Bolshevik Revolution, Maksim (Luke Paviour) comes home after his bomb fails to detonate, and discovers a despondent Polina (Salomé Stokes). Polina is a down on her luck countess, who has been cast out of the nobility and forced to work as a governess for her uncle in the house her father once owned. Maksim, Polina’s lover, works as a servant in the household. Even though Polina’s class level has changed, she still views herself as superior to Maksim. Maksim clearly loves Polina but treats her with equal parts of tenderness and cruelty. With a tough decision to make, which direction will Polina choose?

Hesperus and Phosphorus are both names given to the same star, the morning star, and the evening star, and both represent the planet, Venus. The philosopher, Gottlob Frege used the phrase “Hesperus is Phosphorus” to describe the theory of meaning, since both names represent the same object even though they have different connotations. Likewise, the characters struggle with duelling identities.

Read my full review here.