THEATRE REVIEW: ANDROMACHE
13 JUN/11

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI Agency
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

TORONTO - It owes a lot more, one suspects, to Racine than to Homer or Euripedes, but in the final analysis, Necessary Angel Theatre Company’s new production of ANDROMACHE is more in thrall to director Graham McLaren than to the work of those three writers.

This despite the best efforts of poet Evie Christie, who has authored a new version of the age-old story, one clearly patterned in many ways after the work of Racine, as basis for the Scottish-based director’s latest collaboration with Necessary Angel — a work which had its world première at the Theatre Centre Sunday, a part of the Luminato Festival.

For the uninitiated, Andromache was the widow of Trojan hero Hector, and as such became part of the spoils of war for the conquering armies of Greece. While her fate and the fate of her son, in the worlds of Homer and Euripedes, is far different in Racine’s version — and in this one — Andromache (played by Arsinée Khanjian) and her young son Astyanax (Kieran McNally Kennedy) become captives of the Grecian soldier Pyrrhus (played with almost psychotic fervour by Christopher Morris).

Despite his previous marital commitments to the Grecian princess Hermione (Christine Horne), Pyrrhus develops an unrequited passion for Andromache and, despite her lack of reciprocal passion, forces her hand by threatening to kill Astyanax. But Pyrrhus’s infidelity forces Hermione into an alliance with her would-be lover Orestes (Steven McCarthy), whom she had previously spurned — and this being Greek tragedy (albeit several times removed from its original source), it ends badly for everyone.

It also offers a chance for compelling theatrical explorations of the nature of suffering and pain, love and lust, motherhood and madness — although they seem somewhat secondary here. While they are all touched upon in passing, what’s really on offer here is a compelling exploration of McLaren’s post-apocalyptic vision of a world so battered and bruised that even basic human decency has ceased to exist.

From the very moment one enters the theatre, to be greeted by a host of abusive soldiers in full military drag (more theatres might want to explore the idea of soldiers offering pre-show exhortations to “Turn off your f---ing cellphones!” from behind their machine guns) this is a play consistently more concerned with McLaren’s vision than Christie’s adaptation — an often poetic undertaking that tries to combine the oil of modern day reference and profanity with the water of heroic dialogue, with only mixed success.

And a very talented cast, which also includes Ryan Hollyman in the role of the soldier Pylades, has clearly bent its talents to cleave to McLaren’s directorial and design vision, all of which focuses on a single room in the centre of the theatre, lit in ever-shifting patterns by Andrea Lundy. There are no such things as small performances here, nor even small moments.

Credit sound designer John Wynne, for he gets an in-depth workout here in a sound bed that includes everything from barking dogs to falling bombs and rock music, often offered up in direct competition to often inaudible dialogue. And finally, all of that is the great strength of this production and also its greatest weakness, for in striving to make ANDROMACHE memorably theatrical, McLaren succeeds only by sacrificing all possibility of making it truly memorable theatre.