HIPPOLYTUS. To 26 June.
London
HIPPOLYTUS
by Euripides
Orange Tree Theatre To 26 June 2004
in a double-bill with THE LITTLE YEARS by John Mighton
Wed-Sat 7.45pm Mat 23,26 June 2.30pm
Runs 2hr 25min One interval
TICKETS: 020 8940 3633
Review: Timothy Ramsden 18 June
Half-a-loaf's better than none, but the other half had better be better.Hippolytus came to a bad end; accused of raping his step-mother Phaedra he was killed by a great sea-bull sent by the Ocean God, fulfilling a contract issued on him by his father Theseus. Watching Luisa Bucciero's lanterns enact the mashing of Hippolytus' chariot I felt some fellow-feeling, having had my own car disintegrate on the way to Richmond hence missing The Little Years, a highly-praised one-acter by Canadian John Mighton (author of the fascinating Possible Worlds, seen at London's Finborough Theatre London and Glasgow's Tron).
It wasn't a divine order that fragmented my transmission (I assume), but it was a pity not to experience more terror over the on-stage situation. Unhappily, in the Orange Tree's end-of-season young directors' showcase, Mitchell Moreno (Adam Barnard directed the Mighton) didn't pull off the hard trick of finding a style for small-scale, in-the-round Greek Tragedy playing. The Round's all about people, relationships, conversations. Greek Tragedy was about declaration, stylisation, the great and the not so good conflicting with inevitable forces. Colchester Mercury's Ion gives a good current example of how it can work in a larger space, using the range of choreography, music and speech the plays were written for.
Here, occasional lines work as conversational but tend towards bathetic comedy. Others have to be delivered more formally. To prevent bombast, promulgations and conscious statements of how things are, and how the gods ordain them become flat, like bureaucrats pontificating. And the plot-resolving deus ex machine is reduced to a Dea ex amplifier even with a lighting change to sober blue, a pre-recorded voice hardly registers with due force as chastity's goddess Artemis.
For Hippolytus is the innocent victim of Phaedra's desperate longing for him. The situation comes over one-sided, in the wrong way. Sally Mortemore vividly portrays the confused embarrassment of her passion, as helpless as it is horrifying to her. But Oliver Le Sueur's Hippolytus merely manages detached indignation; there's no suggestion of fear and loathing about his sexuality. The Chorus (ie anyone not otherwise in the present scene) discusses fate as they might problems over holiday bookings.
Theseus: Gary Calandro
Nurse: Chrissie Furness
Messenger: Bibi Jacobs
Hippolytus: Oliver Le Sueur
Phaedra: Sally Mortemore
Flautist: Haider Rahman
Director: Mitchell Moreno
Designer: Sam Dowson
Lighting: Kevin Leach
Sound: Matt Downing
Lanterns: Luisa Bucciero
2004-06-19 01:46:59