At the risk of sounding like a Philistine, I must confess that I’m puzzled by the vogue for all things Greek sweeping American theaters large and small. This summer alone I’ve seen five productions derived from the ancients’ themes and characters. Still to come is Charles L. Mee’s Big Love (based on Aeschylus’ The Suppliant Women, believed by many to be the oldest surviving play in the Western world), which hits the Goodman this fall. I suppose we could chalk it up to the new millennium, which impels us to look backward in order to go forward. And Lord knows, after last fall’s election shenanigans, a glance back at the birthplace of democracy is understandable.
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In its new collaged piece about the original “It” girl, Oblivion Theatre Company (formerly Constellation Players) tackles the enigmatic Helen, the Spartan princess sired by Zeus, married to Menelaus, and kidnapped by Paris–the face that launched a thousand ships. This is the company’s first attempt at creating a nonlinear show drawing upon a wealth of sources, a technique popularized by playwrights like Mee and Richard Foreman. And under Dan Winkler’s direction, the five cast members demonstrate an admirable commitment to their murky, occasionally tendentious material. Before the show begins, the cast and director amble self-consciously through the playing area, a device that’s dropped once the piece gets under way, when the fourth wall goes up brick by brick as the performers deliver a series of monologues, songs, and short scenes.
But though The Helen Project has big aspirations, there simply isn’t enough meat on these mythological bones to hold our interest. Early in the evening, one of the actresses (Leslie Charipar) talks about her revelation, at age 14, that girls who make jokes never get the boys–and notes that she stopped making jokes at that age. The Helen Project suffers from a similar desire to please through superficial solemnity. We learn quite a bit about how company members feel about themselves: their body-image issues, fidelity or lack thereof, being the object of the male gaze/being the one gazing, and the usual undergraduate laundry list of personal/sexual politics.
But for the most part the show’s targets are too obvious. Right-wing Christians are hate mongers; bureaucrats are smarmy, power-hungry toadies; and Bush is bad for the economy, the food supply, the environment, and world peace. And Shook’s direction is turgid and one-dimensional, rendering the material even thinner. Jesus and the Tooth Fairy pop up from time to time to aid the good guys, and appropriately enough, Jesus has the biggest schlong of them all. (You know what they say about guys with big souls and big hearts…) Jesus also gets off one of the best one-liners; talking about Andres Serrano’s infamous Piss Christ, a crucifix immersed in a jar of urine, the Son of God rhapsodizes, “It’s like living in a sunrise.” The show could use more quirky asides like this to leaven the otherwise leaden satire.
