ORPHEUS | STAGE REVIEW
The Gate Arts Centre, Cardiff, Thurs 5 June
Ah, Greek myth, the perennial favourite of the playwright casting around for a subject. So timeless, so contemporary. Take a classic Greek psychodrama, add a couple of modern references, and, hey presto!, you’ve got ‘a modern take on a timeless story’.
This particular take on the story of Orpheus from the Clock Tower Theatre Company is framed by some Olympian types casting around for something to do of an evening, and deciding to watch one of their favourite stories (a similar conceit was used in the original Clash Of The Titans film, where the gods play with mortals like chess pieces). Orpheus, played with some skill by Osian Edwards, is bereft when his beloved dies quite unexpectedly, and so decides to head off to Hades (god of the underworld) to get her back.
Orpheus’ superpower is music; he can literally charm the birds from the trees, but herein lies the biggest flaw in the production. Whenever Orpheus opens his gob to let forth with a bit of song it sounds like an eighties ballad. The audience is being asked to believe that Cerebus is being lulled to sleep by a slow number from an Andrew Lloyd Webber show, or that Pluto is moved to tears by the kind of number that Kenny G might have rejected as ‘a bit too unadventurous’. The music isn’t terrible, just bland and considering the rest of the production is so keen on experimentation that feels like a let down.
The rest of the production is skilfully handled, and, although Minty Booth’s writing lapses into cod-Shakespearian solemnity at points, the play rattles along with an unforced energy.
words DAVID GRIFFITHS
