This musing war-wifedom suffers from a patchy script and a patched-together structure. Crossing time, distance and cultures, the play tends towards a lack of clarity, and audiences will struggle to identify any unifying centre beyond the obvious.The cast try hard to keep the thing together, but given the heavy emphasis on physical theatre, they don’t all play to their strengths. The naturalistic scenes lack engaging characters or dramatic conflict, and are overshadowed by the central myth of Penelope, which reaps the finest theatrical moments. With the ever-increasing threat from the suitors, and our awareness that Odysseus will return, Penelope’s story lends itself to dramatic intensity. By contrast, the modern pictures of war wives are characterised by stasis. It’s hard to make stasis exciting or interesting and this company never quite manage it. Instead, the final two scenes between Penelope and first a suitor, then her husband, are by far the best, seeing movement and emotion subtly combined. The actress playing Penelope in particular is a joy to watch. Like the rest of the cast, however, she falters in her voice work. Vocal weakness and lack of clarity were endemic.Aside from these two scenes the writing and direction strays wildly, sometimes venturing into the downright bizarre. There was an inexplicable 30-second monkey scene. One of two men in the cast played a waiting woman. Though the cast were often required to play above their age, there were constant scenes with women childishly sitting and hanging about on the floor. I have yet to make sense of these and other decisions.Ultimately, however, this is the first production of a new company. The emotive final movement section, with Penelope and Odysseus weaving cloth around each other, demonstrated real potential. This play and its company suffer from a lack of coherence and technique, but a more solid centre and clearer sense of characters’ narratives could produce good work.
