As a part of the UIP-2020-02-3695 Analysis of Systems in Crisis and of New Consciousness in 21st Century Literature installation research project, which is being carried out at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek and is financed by the Croatian Science Foundation (https://askins21.ffos.hr/english/), this paper focuses on two contemporary plays of Western European literature: Odysseus, Verbrecher. Schauspiel einer Heimkehr (2010), written by the Austrian author Christoph Ransmayr, and Phaedra Backwards (2011), by the Irish playwright Marina Carr. In both plays, the authors use the original myths of Odysseus and Phaedra, reimagining them in a contemporary context in order to show the universality of their experiences, but ...