Idomeneus
Written by Roland Schimmelpfennig
Translated by David Tushingham
Directed by Jonathan L. Green
DCA Storefront Theater, 66 E. Randolph (map)
thru Sept 23 | tickets: $25 | more info
Check for half-price tickets
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Cast intones myth with the undulating unity of a heaving ocean
Sideshow Theatre presents
Idomeneus
Review by Catey Sullivan
In its kinetic, intermittently beguiling production of Roland Schimmelpfennig‘s Idomeneus, Sideshow Theatre Company hovers near the slippery intersection of reason and superstition. This is a story that merges myth and history, juxtaposing facts and perhaps and endings and alternate endings in an orbit where the only constant is the iron power of fate to have its way no matter the puny, contrary whims of mankind.
Directed by Jonathan L. Green, Sideshow’s 15-member ensemble often seems to form a single organism, moving and breathing with the undulating unity of a heaving ocean. Evoking the earliest days of Greek theater, when a chorus of actors provided commentary and narration on the action, the cast filters the story of the titular King of Crete through stylized pageantry and (mostly) heightened language.
That stylization results in some powerful moments, but it isn’t uniformly effective. Appropriate though it is to tell a story of ancient Greece in the style of ancient Greek theater, the artifice of the pageantry often gets in the way of the raw emotion that should propel the narrative. There is tragedy upon tragedy in the tale of Idomeneus – filicide, matricide, suicide, disembowelment, drowning and exile to name just a few – but the all-but unimaginable violence and sorrow that steeps the story loses much of its visceral horror amid all the elaborate gesticulating. Less artifice and more gut emotion would serve the production well.
Still, there are flashes of evocative wonder in the hour-long Idomeneus. The saga begins at sea, with Idomeneus and a fleet of his ships headed home from the long, bloody Trojan War. Battered by a mighty tempest, the ships go down in a shimmer of shifting light, the actors buffeted in a dream-like depiction of drowning. To save his own ship, Idomeneus (Cody Proctor) makes a desperate promise to sacrifice the first living thing he encounters when he reaches Crete. As fate would have it, the king’s son (Joey deBettencourt) meets the returning warrior. And it’s here that the myth of Idomeneus diverges like the opposing limbs of a gnarled family tree.
Translated by David Tushingham, Schimmelpfennig’s drama presents alternating versions in the tangled tale of the battle-scarred royal and his 18ish-year-old son: Idomeneus kills his son, and in doing so, angers the gods who in turn put a curse on Crete, drying up the wells and leaving the populace to die of thirst. Or perhaps Idomeneus kills himself, and leaves a tangle of viscera on the beach behind as a bloody reminder that no promise made to the gods can go unfulfilled with impunity. Or does the son live, and sail off happily-ever-after across the gorgeous Aegean with his young lover, Electra? Or does the son die, with the father driven into exile by the angry citizenry?
Woven into these sometimes stilted interludes of conflicting narrative, the cast occasionally drives home passages that startle with their vividness. A description of drowning becomes mesmerizing as the cast lives through a watery end, from pain of gasping in salt water rather than air to the strange, euphoric sense of returning to the womb. A memory of mourning becomes indelible as the ensemble evokes thousands of women, filling a beach with lamentation for their dead husbands and sons.
Idomeneus plays out on scenic designer Joe Schermoly‘s looming wooden arch, a massive shape that calls to mind a ship tossing in a relentless ocean. There’s also a reasonable facsimile of a sandy beach on stage, used to intensely dramatic ends in the final scene as Idomeneus finds himself buried by the burden of fate. Mac Vaughey‘s lighting design is similarly effective, whether evoking a water-color storm or creating a sense of dreamy doom with a tight spotlight.
Throughout, there’s that recurring notion that try though they might to control their lives, mortals are powerless against the power of destiny. “All could be well. Everything could be different,” notes one character. Except that it isn’t. So it goes in both myth and reality.
Rating: ★★½
Idomeneus continues through September 23rd at DCASE Storefront Theater, 66 E. Randolph (map), with performances Thursdays-Saturdays at 7:30pm, Sundays 3pm. Tickets are $25, and are available by phone (800-838-3006) or online through BrownPaperTickets.com (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information at SideshowTheatre.org. (Running time: 60 minutes, no intermission)
Photos by Jonathan L. Green
artists
cast
Matt Fletcher*, Nate Whelden*, Karie Miller*, McKenzie Chinn, Katy Carolina Collins, Joshua Davis, Joey deBettencourt, Hank Hilbert, Ann James, Susaan Jamshidi, Danny Junod, Lona Livington, Kyra Morris, Cody Proctor, Dylan Stuckey
behind the scenes
Jonathan L. Green (director, photos); Joe Schermoly (set); Kristin DeiTos (costumes); Mac Vaughey (lighting); Michael Huey, Christopher M. LaPorte* (co-sound designers, co-composers); Katie Spelman (movement coordinator); Benjamin W. Dawson (production manager); Ellie Mae Wasserman (props); Eli King (tech director); Noel Huntzinger (asst. costumes); Shelby Glasgow (stage manager); Alison McLeod (asst. stage manager); Laura Wiley (master electrician)
* denotes Sideshow ensemble member or artistic associate
12-0825
