This is the world…
The
ensemble as Greek Chorus, stand staggered across a sliver of an amphitheatre
that is slowly being covered by the sands of time. They are welcoming us to the
world of the play and this space, this replica of a gathering place where plays
were once performed and offerings were made to the Gods. It is also our world.
Myth and history of people and land all rolled into one.
This is the
world.
The set by
Dan Barber is striking even as it stands empty on the audience’s approach and
as we settle into the raked seating of the Malthouse’s Merlyn theatre. The
actors enter. Female characters in decorative costumes (also by Barber): gold
breastplates, an ornate headdress, golden jewellery. Male characters draped in
white: loose-fitting pants or hung like robes.
We are
introduced to the past but we understand it’s also about now. About people and
society and wars. Wars without end. Civilizations on the brink of collapse.
Sand pours from the sky and we are both trapped in a moment and watching the
inexorable march of time.
Writer Tom
Wright is no stranger to wrangling old myths into new life. He wrote a version
of Homer’s The Odyssey for the Malthouse in 2005 and collaborated with
Barrie Kosky to adapt Euripedes’ The Women of Troy in 2008. He also
wrote the stage version of a myth of the Australian landscape for Matthew
Lutton in 2016, Picnic at Hanging Rock.
Where
Wright and Kosky’s production of Women of Troy was created during the
War on Terror – another endless war, Troy was inspired by Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine, but is informed by the ongoing conflict and genocide in
Gaza. Wars rage on and this play, based on myth, legend and history, is as vital
today as stories of Troy have ever been.
Wright’s
text is a patchwork of vignettes that bring these stories to life directly and indirectly.
We watch as Cassandra prays to Apollo for the gift of sight, while he intones “take
off your clothes” over and over again. We watch as Clytemnestra is interrogated
about why the siege of Troy is happening: she relates a story of internecine
strife, leading to a parade of details surrounding why they are at war without
a clear explanation. We see archaeologists trying to uncover the truth. Three
men on a podcast just asking questions. The play slides forwards and backwards,
adding detail but introducing speculation at every turn.
This is the
world.
Director
Ian Michael, who recently led a production of Wright’s Hanging Rock
for Sydney Theatre Company, has created a show that both stands on ceremony and
plays with the form. There are moments of great portent, mixed with sly jokes.
Scenes that are deliberately paced and others that breeze along.
The design
team Michael has assembled has created a show full of searing imagery and bone-shaking
jolts. Across Barber’s set plays Paul Jackson’s lighting that paints night and day
and a troubling dusk. When the powers of the Gods strike, a swathe of colour
gives way to the blackest of blacks. Marco Cher’s sound design is exquisite as
it rumbles through the auditorium as if in a storm and then peppers our ears
with cracks of power and then a rain of gunfire.
If this
play is the story of any one character, it is that of Cassandra – cursed to
know everything and never be believed. Her attempts to pass on knowledge aren’t
just misheard but misunderstood and egregiously misinterpreted. At first, her
experiences echoed those of most women I know – spoken over at meetings or
disbelieved when reporting abuse or worse. As she struggled with even leaving a
mark or a recording of her reality, it felt like a commentary on fake news or our
increasing inability to sift misinformation from the truth. Truth, of course,
being the first casualty of war.
Elizabeth Blackmore’s
Cassandra starts off as a child, then becomes a surly teenager and the turns
she takes as the character marches toward her fated doom are a striking mix of
humorous and bleak. The tonal shifts Blackmore makes are impressive in their richness
– a stunning, fully formed performance.
Ciline
Ajobong’s turn as Iphigenia is arresting because of the character's boldness, evolving from manipulated child of the king toward a more ruthless destructive
streak. Her frightening repetition of “I am a bomb” will ring in my head for a
while.
Danny Ball
and Lyndon Watts bring some erotically-charged chemistry as Achilles and
Patroclus, though Watts is even more memorable as a shrouded Helen of Troy – his
ethereal vocals echoing throughout the space. Helen is a figure of much
discussion in this play but she is a more mystical presence, haunting the stage
and the city itself. Is she a convenient excuse to continue a war? She is only
one dot point in Clytemnestra’s list, but she continues to be a cornerstone of the
conflict, whether she deserves to be or not.
Late in Troy,
as the dramatic tension ramps up and the Trojan horse unfurls to release an
enemy onslaught; there’s a sequence of destruction that is both stylised and
visceral. Bodies flung to the ground violently. The sounds of explosions and the
strafing of gunfire. People struggling to cross an open field, a sand drift,
the steep stairs. Falling down dead. Over and over and over. It’s unsettling.
It’s upsetting.
But this is
the world. It’s not the same as watching deaths and starvation and the genocide in
Gaza, but I felt it in my chest the same way. The relentlessness. The
helplessness. The inhumanity and history's cycles of violence.
The play
isn’t hopeless, though. It isn’t nihilistic. It’s just clear that this story is
told and retold because it is history and it is the present. And the story of stolen land, colonised and conquered, is not just a
story of myth or of lands far away.
This is the
world.
And this
country.
Troy is remarkable in its vision and
scope. A towering achievement.
Troy is playing at the Malthouse until September 25
Photos: Pia Johnson
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