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quinaraJust got back from seeing Frank McGuinness' version of Euripides' Helen at The Globe - simply put, it was great! And exactly the right sort of play to be a groundling for, since there was loads of stuff that made standing in the yard extra special and it was only an hour and a half, so your feet didn't get too sore at all.
The set was fairly minimal, as expected, with one of the two stage columns left blank with a hill built around it and the other turned into a tomb (gold, pseudo-Egyptian base and the column covered in gold too). A ramp led down from the centre of the stage too. The back drop was a massive white screen, with huge letters embossed across it - Ελενη mirror-imaged so it read from right-to-left (and backwards), with the centre epsilon screen missing and replaced by the door and the balcony covered by silver streamers. I'm not explaining this very well, but the set was also clearly supposed to be 'under-construction' - the capital epsilon hadn't been placed into it's gap in the screen and the eta was leaning outwards, held by a rope. The pre-prologue (to coin a term) involved two musicians playing the drum and the clarinet (which really did sound North African) while two workmen (who turned out later to be Castor and Pollux) did a sort of dumb-show as builders working on the set.
Which, naturally, was very pertinent to the subject matter, which is all about construction and doubles and authority and myth. As the servant says to Menelaus when he turns up, they can spot a Greek a mile off - in the same way we all know who the Egyptians are (they're the ones with the heavy kohl make-up, innit). This play constructs a Helen as surely as anyone else. I'm glad they didn't do away with the gods or the chorus (I saw Troades at the National without the gods' prologue and it definitely changed the play), because you need that hierarchical chain of command. Helen, abandoned by the gods, abandons her chorus in Egypt; Theoclymenus tries to take control over the kingdom and the dictates of his father and ultimately has to cede power to the gods. I was especially happy, since, as they should be, Castor and Pollux were pretty comical dei ex machina (semi-literally in this case - yay!), with massive angel-wings attached to the back of their white overalls. My favourite person in the entire play, though, was someone credited as 'Singer' (apparently his name's William Purefoy; I wonder if he's a relation to James?), who walked around in a white dinner jacket/black trousers combo, but with bare feet, sometimes part of the chorus, sometimes singing the dialogue over the top of people saying it, sometimes just watching. His high falsetto (?? my man-singing terms fail; is counter-tenor the better word?) only added to the mystery of his role, and to me he definitely seemed like some sort of divine influence. It was certainly like an external force underpinning people's actions/emotions.
Ooh, and the play ended as I've decided all plays should, with some catchy 6/8 dance music from the musicians and all the cast dancing through their curtain call with massive smiles on their faces. That's how I like to leave the theatre! (Especially when they clearly checked to see the audience was in the mood to be appreciative before they milked a second bow.)
I think the only thing that made me miffed, strangely enough, was reading Frank McGuinness' interview in the programme on the way home. Maybe he's just acting coy, but I feel like I should be crediting the production team for 'getting it' a lot more than he did.
Because, let's see, what attracted him to Helen?
"It's a brilliant love story, it has a happy ending and it's a marvellous comedy. Most importantly, it's about the celebration of a union which survives and that is rare in a successful play. It is funny, joyous, moving and about recognisable people under enormous threat."
To be fair, I did sell it to my mum as a bit of a rom-com/farce-type affair, but I don't think you can really call it a love story. Hooray, Helen's back yoked under the right husband (the one her father gave her to) and hasn't been sullying herself with any other men! Hooray, Troy's destroyed and vast hordes are dead for no reason! Hooray, the random Egyptian people we didn't meet are all dead for the crime of rowing on a boat! If it's a love story it's the love story of Paris and Helen told in miniature where nothing happier than destruction and upset surround the couple involved. Though I suppose people tend to like those.
To refer to Helen and Menelaus' marriage as a 'union', also, feels very much like misunderstanding the nature of Greek gender relations. And, most importantly, women on the stage in Greek theatre =/= women (this comes up in another answer, where apparently "the loyalty, cleverness and bravery of women are central"). They're characters assumed and used, to get a bit wanky and use Froma Zeitlin's words, to explore men's "project of selfhood", nothing more nothing less. (To be fair, some people feel differently, but I tend to judge those people as romanticising Hellenists...) As far as I'm concerned you can replace Helen with a personification of a slippery casus belli in the hands of your intelligence agencies and still end up with the same nuances. Whack in a bit of raunch and you've got the purpose of her character.
And I can only hope that "What the Greeks were doing was for all time" is a retrospective comment, in the sense that we'll always get something out of the plays, because otherwise, no, no, my friend. I think you'll find there was a certain festival and no assumption that you're play would ever be re-performed...
Still, thumbs-up for the play!!
The set was fairly minimal, as expected, with one of the two stage columns left blank with a hill built around it and the other turned into a tomb (gold, pseudo-Egyptian base and the column covered in gold too). A ramp led down from the centre of the stage too. The back drop was a massive white screen, with huge letters embossed across it - Ελενη mirror-imaged so it read from right-to-left (and backwards), with the centre epsilon screen missing and replaced by the door and the balcony covered by silver streamers. I'm not explaining this very well, but the set was also clearly supposed to be 'under-construction' - the capital epsilon hadn't been placed into it's gap in the screen and the eta was leaning outwards, held by a rope. The pre-prologue (to coin a term) involved two musicians playing the drum and the clarinet (which really did sound North African) while two workmen (who turned out later to be Castor and Pollux) did a sort of dumb-show as builders working on the set.
Which, naturally, was very pertinent to the subject matter, which is all about construction and doubles and authority and myth. As the servant says to Menelaus when he turns up, they can spot a Greek a mile off - in the same way we all know who the Egyptians are (they're the ones with the heavy kohl make-up, innit). This play constructs a Helen as surely as anyone else. I'm glad they didn't do away with the gods or the chorus (I saw Troades at the National without the gods' prologue and it definitely changed the play), because you need that hierarchical chain of command. Helen, abandoned by the gods, abandons her chorus in Egypt; Theoclymenus tries to take control over the kingdom and the dictates of his father and ultimately has to cede power to the gods. I was especially happy, since, as they should be, Castor and Pollux were pretty comical dei ex machina (semi-literally in this case - yay!), with massive angel-wings attached to the back of their white overalls. My favourite person in the entire play, though, was someone credited as 'Singer' (apparently his name's William Purefoy; I wonder if he's a relation to James?), who walked around in a white dinner jacket/black trousers combo, but with bare feet, sometimes part of the chorus, sometimes singing the dialogue over the top of people saying it, sometimes just watching. His high falsetto (?? my man-singing terms fail; is counter-tenor the better word?) only added to the mystery of his role, and to me he definitely seemed like some sort of divine influence. It was certainly like an external force underpinning people's actions/emotions.
Ooh, and the play ended as I've decided all plays should, with some catchy 6/8 dance music from the musicians and all the cast dancing through their curtain call with massive smiles on their faces. That's how I like to leave the theatre! (Especially when they clearly checked to see the audience was in the mood to be appreciative before they milked a second bow.)
I think the only thing that made me miffed, strangely enough, was reading Frank McGuinness' interview in the programme on the way home. Maybe he's just acting coy, but I feel like I should be crediting the production team for 'getting it' a lot more than he did.
Because, let's see, what attracted him to Helen?
"It's a brilliant love story, it has a happy ending and it's a marvellous comedy. Most importantly, it's about the celebration of a union which survives and that is rare in a successful play. It is funny, joyous, moving and about recognisable people under enormous threat."
To be fair, I did sell it to my mum as a bit of a rom-com/farce-type affair, but I don't think you can really call it a love story. Hooray, Helen's back yoked under the right husband (the one her father gave her to) and hasn't been sullying herself with any other men! Hooray, Troy's destroyed and vast hordes are dead for no reason! Hooray, the random Egyptian people we didn't meet are all dead for the crime of rowing on a boat! If it's a love story it's the love story of Paris and Helen told in miniature where nothing happier than destruction and upset surround the couple involved. Though I suppose people tend to like those.
To refer to Helen and Menelaus' marriage as a 'union', also, feels very much like misunderstanding the nature of Greek gender relations. And, most importantly, women on the stage in Greek theatre =/= women (this comes up in another answer, where apparently "the loyalty, cleverness and bravery of women are central"). They're characters assumed and used, to get a bit wanky and use Froma Zeitlin's words, to explore men's "project of selfhood", nothing more nothing less. (To be fair, some people feel differently, but I tend to judge those people as romanticising Hellenists...) As far as I'm concerned you can replace Helen with a personification of a slippery casus belli in the hands of your intelligence agencies and still end up with the same nuances. Whack in a bit of raunch and you've got the purpose of her character.
And I can only hope that "What the Greeks were doing was for all time" is a retrospective comment, in the sense that we'll always get something out of the plays, because otherwise, no, no, my friend. I think you'll find there was a certain festival and no assumption that you're play would ever be re-performed...
Still, thumbs-up for the play!!
I am green with envy
Date: 24/08/2009 07:37 (UTC)Re: I am green with envy
Date: 24/08/2009 10:06 (UTC)