Poppaea Sabina that it is not a drama that promotes the triumph of virtue. Poppaea is portrayed as cynically plotting to become empress of Rome by manipulating the emperor Nero into marrying her, and her machinations include the execution of Seneca the Younger, who opposes her plans, which are successful at the end of the drama. Poppaea is a principal character also in Handel's opera "Agrippina" of 1709, but as a victim, not a perpetrator, of deceit and manipulation. Here the schemer is Agrippina, Nero's mother, intent on promoting her son's claim to the throne. Poppaea, the ingenue, is portrayed as the
The Problem (play) their home, she immediately reveals her hugely pregnant stomach to her husband who seems to not have noticed that she was ever pregnant. The Husband is completely unfazed and uninterested and almost leaves, until the Wife presents him with the possibility that the baby may not be his. The husband stays, remarkably and comically, calm . He only becomes slightly surprised when the Wife states that they have not had sex in five years; he does not realize it has been so long. While the Husband becomes apologetic for this lack of intimacy, the Wife assures him not to worry