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. It has been adapted for television numerous times, in Britain and other countries, but has been less frequently revived in the theatre. 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. Background and first production The Mercury Theatre, in Notting Hill Gate, London, was opened by Ashley Dukes in 1933. Part of its brief was to present new, experimental drama, and before the Second World War plays by T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood and others were presented there. After the war the Mercury continued to present new plays. 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. Both works have small casts: four performers in the first and three in the second. Fry took as his inspiration Jeremy Taylor's retelling of a tale from Petronius. 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". Original cast Dynamene – Hermione Hannen Doto – Eleanor Summerfield Tegeus – Alan Wheatley The play was directed by E. Martin Browne. Plot The scene is the tomb of the recently-dead Virilius, near Ephesus. Dynamene, the grieving widow, has determined to remain in the tomb until she can join Virilius in the underworld. The play opens with the first night of gloomy fast and broken sleep, disturbed at 2 a.m. by Tegeus, a soldier. He has been put on guard over the bodies of six criminals hanged nearby. He is drawn by the light in the tomb and enters. Dynamene, encouraged by her maidservant Doto, gradually finds Tegeus so attractive that she opts for life with him rather than death with Virilius. They discover that in Tegeus's absence from his post one of the dead bodies has been cut down; this neglect of his duties renders Tegeus liable to court martial. He decides to kill himself rather than face the disgrace. Dynamene suggests that they substitute the body of Virilius. Tegeus is appalled, but she