The remarkable energy with which Unmythable retells the dozen or so Greek myths lucky enough to receive its attention can be seen manifested in the floods of sweat its three actors produce. The real toil of good physical theatre can hardly be more visible, hardly more enjoyed, than it is at this flawless production by temple theatre.
Troels Hagen Findsen, Paul O’Mahony, and Will Pinchin, aided by only the simplest of costumes and a single guitar, play the parts of some thirty Greek heroes in a show that effortlessly compiles the lesser known and the much loved tales from Greek mythology. The linking conceit is both appropriate and keeps people involved: welcomed on board by a plate of real olives, we are the Argonauts trying to recover the Golden Fleece.
But how will we entertain ourselves on such a long journey?
With an enormous repertoire of accents at their disposal, the Argo’s three shipmates tell us stories by assuming the roles of everyone from Persephone (a part that suits the wide eyed O’Mahony unsettlingly well) to King Aeetes (Findsen takes on this challenge, making Medea’s father into a New York East End Mafioso). They sing to us; they re-enact scenes; there is darkness, light, music, silence, dance, and gravity. They double up on roles, staging remarkable conversations with themselves in which they change from man to woman every other second, or leap from floor to box as first Hades then Zeus.
Their script does not make any pretence of being loyal to the sprawling mass of material that is the Ancient Greek literary corpus. Rather it takes possession of the stories, modernising them, while paying intelligent tribute to the way the Ancient Greeks might have done it. The guitar, for instance, provides a musical accompaniment that gestures towards the Greeks’ use of the lyre in the recitation of poetry without getting too caught up in the allusion.
The thrust stage at ZOO’s Monkey House supports the intimacy of temple theatre’s production – and they in turn use it well. Nevertheless, given their unflagging respect for the audience, they could no doubt bring down a larger house with equal ease. As it stands, sitting in those chairs watching Unmythable, you are made to feel like a lucky member of the charmed few: an Argonaut with his Golden Fleece.