*Deirdre, best-known by the epithet “Deirdre of the Sorrows,” is the foremost tragic heroine in Irish mythology. (She ends up committing suicide in order to escape a forced marriage with the old King Conchobar.)

Ai’s play Deirdre begins where the existing story ends: The now-dead Deidre arrives in the Underworld where she meets other female mythological figures, who have also been victims of misogynistic ideology: Izanami, the Goddess of Death (in Japanese mythology,) Eurydice, an oak nymph and Orpheus’ wife (in Greek mythology,) and Persephone, the Queen of the Underworld and Hades’ wife (in Greek mythology,) are there, all having been abandoned and confined by their husbands. It’s a story about friendship among the women/goddesses from different cultures and traditions (who however share similar experiences) and their struggles to rise above the pain, rage and humiliation and to resist and fight their ill-starred destinies.