[The four verse plays in Beyond the Mountains] are based on extant Greek tragedies, but in form they are modeled on Japanese Noh plays. Like Noh plays, they contain few characters in rich costumes, as well as Chorus and Musicians, and each drama is climaxed by a dance. As in Noh plays, too, Rexroth's stage is almost bare, but his language is more profuse in imagery. Rather than the duologues of Noh, Rexroth uses the three speaking parts of Classical drama.

The first of Rexroth's plays is called Phaedra, and it presents the basic story of Euripides' Hippolytus. (p. 263)

In an Author's Note, Rexroth explains that "Phaedra and Hippolytus achieve transcendence but are destroyed by impurity of intention." Rexroth is probably drawing on the Zen teachings behind Noh, in which the dance leads to yugen, a kind of transcendence. In the American play, however, the deaths of the...