PENTHISILEA by Tom Kempinski. New End Theatre to 28 October.

London

PENTHISILEA
by Tom Kempinski

New End Theatre To 28 October 2001
Runs 1hr 45min One interval

TICKETS 020 7794 0022
Review Timothy Ramsden 14 October

Minor – possibly very minor - Kempinski, but that's better than no Kempinski at all, as Amazons try swallowing Greeks.'Love and War', New End's Tom Kempinski season, moves into the territory of Sex and Violence with this second play, again set during the Trojan War. Our guide to the plains is Thersites (Robert Sterne), a camp slick-haired commentator, the kind of servant for whom no master is a hero. If he's not chewing gum it's only because it's not been invented.

The 'Living Legend' as he sarcastically refers to Achilles (Richard Laing) is an amalgam of self-love, roaring arrogance and complete lack of any understanding of anybody else. What Achilles feels is all that matters.

This makes him stronger than the warrior queen Penthisilea (Tina Deen, a striking figure without quite the force of a leader). Her Amazons have chosen the Greeks for invites to their next conception party, where they'll impregnate the women warriors, the subsequent babies being left to die if boys, brought up in the fighting tribe if girls (the treatment of males they learned, the queen explains, from male run tribes).

When Achilles and Penthisilea meet, there's an apparent love scene. Just how thin the Living Legend's affection is becomes apparent when Achilles learns some Greeks have been killed and the Greek's true contempt for women emerges in sickening violence.

Only one voice speaks against war and shows a capacity for lasting love. It's heard very little and mainly in grief. Andromache is widow of Hector, killed by Achilles, and first seen through the archway at one back corner of Nicolai Hart Hansen's economically effective set. Her voice, quiet but penetrating in Katie Pattinson's performance, is marginal to the shouts of pride and war. But it's central to the progress of mankind, as the character finally moves centre stage in Diane Hillier's production. Here is a female voice whose son, flourishing under her care unlike the Amazons' male babies, is being taught a deeply alternative way of life on the plains of Troy – peace.

Odysseus: Christian Bradley
Penthisilea: Tina Deen
Amazon General: Julie Drake
Prothoe: Viss Elliot
Astyanax: Harry Jardine
Achilles: Richard Laing
Amazon General: Joanna Marks
Andromache: Katie Pattinson
Soldier: Jay Simpson
Hector: Richard Stacey
Thersites: Robert Sterne
Vexoris: Alice the dog

Director: Diana Hillier
Designer: Nicolai Hart Hansen
Lighting: Sebastian Williams
Composer: Edmund Jolliffe

2001-10-23 10:08:29