I was intrigued by the idea of a feminist interpretation of Pygmalian myth because it's seen now as one of the classic stories about men being pigs; and by modern standards it is full of non consensual sex acts. This adaptation takes that as its starting point and runs with it. It's about boys being boys in the worst and most violent way possible. In the original myth; from within the soup of misogyny that was ancient Greek culture; the sculptor Pygmalian, for whom no real woman was enough, builds and then falls in love with one of his own status, which then the goddess Aphrodite turns into a real woman.
The locker room talk is turned up to 11 and it makes me squirm and have to look away
It’s really good to see male playwrights and directors using feminism as a lens through which to make art, this is something I want to encourage, both here at the fringe and beyond. It’s a unique feeling to be watching a play by men for men, but the story is a feminist one.
In this version of the myth Galatea is a daughter of Aphrodite, whose marble body is given life when Aphrodite imbues Malian's statue with living spirit. She has a little more agency than in the original, Gatea is also here as a test. It is a little unclear if the test is god given or from Galatea herself, but she wishes to test the love of Malian before fully revealing herself to him. In the original Ovid the statue didn't have a name, she was still an object, even in the happy ending where she becomes Pygmalian’s wife. A sign of how far we have come, and yet have still to go.
We begin in ancient Greece. Good effort has gone into the design; someone clearly spent some time on the same bits of Pinterest as I do. Everyone needs a little more practice moving around in the historical costume. The ancient style dialogue is flowery and more incomprehensible than good storytelling. The starting in ancient Greece is mercifully brief, and doesn't connect through into the modern day story.
The show really starts to sing when it gets to the modern-day. As Malion tries to show his two friends his work of art. I’ve worked in plaster myself and you do get asked some very odd questions. The locker room talk is turned up to 11 and it makes me squirm and have to look away. I was surprised to be hearing so much pornogaphy, the worst sound effects I’ve heard this Fringe. Malian believes himself to be above the crass objectification of his friends. The inevitable violence against Galata was well built too, and horribly lingered on.
The main flaw with the piece is that the show has not transitioned well from rehearsal into the space it is being performed. Actors are outside the light on stage so regularly that it stops looking like an artistic decision and more like sloppy blocking. The moments where I think the actors are meant to speak to us from darkness the use of voice is so muttering that it does not carry and is hard to hear. This means I'm a bit unclear about some of the characters. For example I'm not sure if Jordan Monks and Ben Kay are playing the mythical twins Cupid and Eros and they are also Malian's friends, or if they are simply two separate pairs of characters played by two actors.
There is real potential here; this is a show who's heart is in the right place, but there is work that needs to be done, particularly with clarity of performance.
