Prince of Parthia
Carpenter’s Hall
320 chestnut st.
Philadelphia
Sept. 12, 2025
Showing through Sept. 20
This show is part of the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, which is running now through Sept. 28. Find out what else is showing this month through FringeArts on their calendar here.
Prince of Parthia, a neoclassical tragedy by Thomas Godfrey, was the first play ever performed in America when it was staged at Philly’s Southwark Theater in 1767. This month, theater group EgoPo is reading the show aloud in Carpenters’ Hall — a famed meeting place for colonial delegates during the American Revolution — in honor of America’s 250th birthday and as part of the Philadelphia Fringe Festival.
The play, set in the Parthian Empire in the 1st century A.D., might not seem like the most American story. But a spokesperson for EgoPo praised the piece during opening night as symbolic of the creative juices that have flowed out of the development of American democracy: “We can really dig down and find our patriotism in a moment when it’s hard,” he said of returning to Prince of Parthia amid Trump’s reign prior to the show’s start.
Outside and inside Carpenters' Hall.
Unfortunately, the show — like America’s claimed commitment to free speech and people power — fell flat. Apparently the play has not been shown since 1767, and for good reason: It’s just not very good.
The play tells the story of an empire collapsed internally by jealousy and paranoia. The work’s conflicts erupt around one woman, Evanthe, who is in love with Parthia’s heir to the throne, Arsaces. All the men in the royal family love her back — including the king. This infuriates the queen, marking Evanthe as a target; but Evanthe has no interest in power, and instead begs Arsaces to flee the monarchy and live a private, rural life with her.
Early in the show, Evanthe laments the woes of being born an attractive woman, describing the sexual coercion she experienced at early ages. She is later kidnapped by Arsaces’ plotting brother who tries to force her affections: “force shall make me blessed,” he proclaims. As someone who hails from outside of Parthia, Evanthe’s subjection to violence, power and royalty proves to be the most dynamic part of the play as it relates to America’s birth and development.
The play is likely an attempted takedown of loyalty to the British crown, though it almost reads as a more apt criticism of the tragedy of colonialism. It’s also, ironically, a trickle-down take on Shakespeare. The story was written at a monumental turning point in history, but the script is full of derivative tropes: Misunderstandings, ghost hauntings, and rash suicides litter the plot. The language is dense and inaccessible. The result is a confused Macbeth, packed with unmotivated plot points that say less about political realities and more about how to write unconvincing characters.
Though the cast admirably gave it their all, the stripped down reading also made it difficult for the audience to access whatever power the play once held. Out-of-costume actors reading out of identical black binders doesn’t exactly inspire the imagination to take off. However, the staging of the show inside the Carpenters’ Hall gift shop was a surprisingly theatrical touch; independence-themed trinkets, early American architecture and stacks of history books for sale all got me in the mood to reflect on how revolution — and assimilation of thought — have changed their look over the past two centuries.
Following the actors’ bows, I asked an older couple what they thought of the play. They said they had come to see their grandson perform, and that while they found the play itself hard to follow, they were proud of the part their kin played in the show’s execution.
For theater with a goal of sparking open dialogue among the public, this show proved to be evasive and insular in its elderly (but not yet ancient) source material. Sometimes plays go unspoken for 140 years for a reason — still, I enjoyed the premise of the project and found these shortcomings to be no fault of the players.
In the end, it was George Washington, whose portrait hangs over the doorway of Carpenters’ Hall, who had the best seat in the house.
Prince of Parthia is showing through Sept. 20. Buy tickets here.
