HELEN To 23 August.
London.
HELEN
by Euripides in a new version by Frank McGuinness. From a literal translation by Fionnuala Murphy.
Shakespeare’s Globe 21 New Globe Walk SE1 9DT In rep to 23 August 2009.
1pm 16, 23 Aug.
2pm 14, 21 Aug.
7.30pm 13, 15, 20, 22 Aug.23 Aug.
Runs 1hr 30min No interval.
TICKTS: 020 7087 7398.
www.shakespeares-globe.org
Review: Timothy Ramsden 9 August.
Helen handled with a high hand.
It’s funny and it has a happy ending. Yet Helen is a Greek Tragedy, where human hopes and purpose operate in a world whirled by fate, chance and incomprehensible forces. Helen’s ultimate happiness arrives after years of separation and enough plotting to stock a modern adventure film. And, if the living end up happy it’s only after a lot of others have died.
Euripides called upon a legend that Helen of Troy never reached that city but was landed in Egypt, where we find her. This has devastating implications. The Helen held within the walls of Troy, for whose ‘rescue’ a ten year war was fought, was a doppelganger, a ‘virtual Helen’. And what does the real woman want? To be reunited with her husband, Spartan king Menelaus.
But Egyptian king Theoclymenes won’t let her go. Ironically – Euripides is never short of irony – after armies have fought a decade for a phantom, it’s up to a small party to use a crafty trick to deceive this king.
This also means persuading his sister Theonoe to help – the moment she agrees is a moral highlight, clearly-pointed in Diveen Henry’s performance. Around it are chances, false news, and Rawiri Paraten’s part-comic, part-thuggish Theoclymenes, strangely sympathetic as he’s being outwitted by the Greeks.
Deborah Bruce’s Globe production helps through its acting. Principally Penny Downie’s Helen, with a forthright blaze emphasising that this part of the theatre’s 2009 ‘Young Hearts’ season shows the theme in maturing minds and bodies. But also Paul McGann’s ardent Menelaus and Penny Layden as a resourceful servant who might have stepped out of Moliere.
Other production aspects are more puzzling, with attempts to be funny in the set, a kind of slag-heap over one side of the stage, colourful Egyptian figures sticking pointlessly out, daft or anachronistic costumes, similarly without purpose, and a fine counter-tenor whose presence is, alas, without particular purpose. Bruce, meanwhile, takes every opportunity to exploit comedy in the flatnesses and modernisms of Frank McGuinness’s script. The trouble is, her efforts seem meagre and desperate by the side of Euripides’ own comedy of tragic irony.
Helen: Penny Downie.
Theonoe: Diveen Henry.
Pollux/Chorus: James Lailey.
Gatekeeper: Penny Layden.
Castor/Chorus: Fergal McElherron.
Menelaus: Paul McGann.
Theoclymenes: Rawiri Paratene.
Singer: William Purefoy.
Servant: Ian Redfern.
Messenger: Ukweli Roach.
Teucer: Andrew Vincent.
Chorus: Holly Atkins, Jack Farthing, Tom Stuart, Graham Vick.
Director: Deborah Bruce.
Designer: Gideon Davey.
Composer: Claire van Kampen.
Mudical Director: Phil Hopkins.
Movement: Glynn MacDonald.
Voice/Dialect: Jan Haydn Rowles.
Choreographer: Siab Williams.
Fight director: Kevin McCurdy.
Assistant director: Tess Denman-Cleaver.
2009-08-13 11:33:19