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A SplitMoon Theatre production DIONYSUS UNBOUND
By Peter Stürm
Jan 21st – Feb 2nd
Bridewell Theatre
A review by Maddy Ryle for EXTRA! EXTRA!
The life and legacy of Alexander the Great is a subject of much conjecture and controversy. If one thing is agreed upon it is that the man and his life present us with an enigma. In Dionysus Unbound no attempt is made to unravel this mystery, which is just as well. Instead the strange web of incest, familial rivalry, and blood lust which surrounded the young Alexander before he set out on his path of conquest is presented to us in a stark, noisy, and suitably Bacchanalian – or I should say Dionysian,production.
The play opens promisingly, with the audience being invited to stand and surround the playing space for the first 15 minutes of action, during which Alexander’s sister, Cleopatra, makes an impassioned and anguished plea to the forest for her banished brother to ‘not be distant’. Members of the cast, dispersed among the audience, provide an effective chorus to her entreaty. A tense and brilliantly feminine exchange then takes place between Cleopatra (Yasmin Bodalbhai) and her father Philip’s new, pregnant bride Eurydice (Madeline Appiah) before the watchers are ushered to their seats. This device, however, would have been more effective if the audience had been more tightly directed by the cast as to where to stand; instead the milling about at the start detracted from the tautness of the action. Cleopatra’s dark vision of the tussle between Alexander and their mother, Olympias, is also ambiguous to the point of confusion.
This slight looseness in direction is a problem which plagues the production at various points. Writer-Director Peter Stürm has created a wonderful script, in full verse, for his Alexander trilogy, of which this is the second instalment (the third is yet to be finished), but the power of the text is undermined at various points by some confusing and poorly played scenes. For instance, the scene in which Olympias (Myriam Acharki), confronts the ghost of her father, Neoptolemos, lacks the force we expect of such a strong icon of womanhood, and the words fall flat, not helped by the fact that Neoptolemos lolls around casually on the lip of a trapdoor. A later scene, in which Olympias’ brother Epiros (Benedict Hopper) comes to her with his band of followers on the eve of war with Philip, has some nice choreography but allows itself to indulge too much in wild abandonment at the worship of Dionysus, of whom Olympias is a High Priestess. The audience quickly loses a sense of being involved in the ceremony and is left rather nonplussed. It is also unfortunate that the accent of Arrhidaios, who is Alexander and Cleopatra’s half-brother and the ‘Fool’ character in the play, is too thick for us to pick up on the wisdom he is (presumably) imparting.
Fortunately, these weaker moments are well compensated for by some very powerful scenes, in particular those featuring Philip and Alexander, grippingly portrayed by David Keller and the amazingly agile Glen Fox respectively. Both actors invest their characters with a disturbing mix of megalomania, violence and madness. What works so well is that Alexander is given comparatively very little time on stage, but the glimpses we have of him and the construction of the script allow him to dominate psychologically, and Philip’s consequent fury is thrillingly palpable. The final confrontation between the two, at which the rest of the family is also present, is undoubtedly the highlight of the play, when the strength of the script, acting, and well-poised stage design combine to great effect. This play was written for performance at the Bridewell, and the large, moody space is a terrific setting for this Greek almost-tragedy, allowing Alexander to dominate physically as well as he leaps around the mezzanine balcony.
Indeed, the play as a whole has been well designed. The programme notes alert us to the fact that this ancient story has been somehow transposed into our modern era, with the idea of exploring the timelessness of the central themes – incest, revenge, war. The result is a well-poised combination of old and new, with Philip posing for camera ops, sound effects of modern weapons, occasional linguistic and thematic ‘anachronisms’, and a strange but effective mix of dress. Modern acting techniques are also present, with some very good moments of physical theatre. All of this however, succeeds in not detracting from the experience of watching a traditional Greek drama unfold.
A shame, then, that some scenes let down this excellent piece of writing, but Dionysus Unbound contains some wonderful performances as well, and overall this is a thoughtful and thought-provoking production.
Monday - Saturday, 21 Jan - 2 Feb 2008
http://www.stbridefoundation.org/bridewelltheatre
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