Review: Cambridge Greek Play 2022: The Persians and The Cyclops

Walking into the Cambridge Arts Theatre amid a flurry of wide-eyed school groups punctuated by world-renowned Classicists, I was struck by two things (well, aside from the urge to bombard anyone who would listen with a host of ‘it’s all Greek to me’ puns!).

The first, awe and respect for the host of intrepid young cast and creatives embarking on the adventure of a lifetime in learning not just the complex and nuanced mechanisms of Greek theatre, but the equally complex and nuanced mechanisms of Greek language.

The second, perhaps more importantly, curiosity.

What shifts, when the door of lexis is shut in the audience’s face, and we are instead led in through a window of spectacle and song. What is lost, or what, rather, is gained?

Saul Barrett’s powerful portrayal of Xerxes (Image Credit: Zoe Birkbeck)

A staunch mainstay of the Cambridge Theatre scene, the triennial Cambridge Greek Play has survived since its conception in 1882 and acted as a powerful force both to draw in and churn out many world-renowned creatives including Annie Castledine (director of 2004 Oedipus Tyrannus) and current director, Daniel Goldman.

This year however marks the first time a double bill of tragedy and satyr play has been performed, a radical yet at the same time remarkably authentic way of delivering Greek theatre to a modern audience.

And from the minute the curtain rose it seemed that of authenticity, there was to be no question.

The chorus begin the tale with song (Image Credit: Zoe Birkbeck)

From Greek key pattern weaving its way upstage, to the chorus, dark eyed and dark robed, staring us down from atop the tiered set, the spectacle plunged us into a world of Hellenic aesthetic and ageless wonder that echoed throughout the tale, perhaps paling only to the wave of swooping lyric, gut-wrenching lament and rhythmic swell that soon overtook the theatre as the chorus began their song.

Based upon a powerful counter-cultural comment on the Battle of Salamis (480BC), Aeschylus’ Persians seems to force both modern and contemporary audience alike to don the grief of another, particularly an ‘other’ that seems so far removed from oneself.

The nature of the production seems at times to force the hand of the production regarding some rather tricky staging choices; the tiered set that dominated the stage – although expertly used – did become a little monotonous as both cast and creative seemed, at times, backed into a corner. One wonders if more could have been done to illuminate and externalise the fires of mourning and tales of battle that Maria Telnikoff’s Atossa (an iron lady for the ancient Greek stage), expertly drew from within to continue the visual wonder set up so well by the show’s opening.

The rising of Darius (Mithiran Ravindran), (Image Credit: Zoe Birkbeck)

Perhaps that is simply the nature of the beast. And with this particular beast being a radical invention of contemporary theatre as is – multiple actors were new inventions for Aeschylus’ viewer – it seems there is only so much theatrical fodder to work with.

As the entrance of the hauntingly powerful Darius (Mithrian Ravindran) and Saul Barrett’s grief-savaged Xerxes, cut through Atossa’s lament with great potency, it seems Aeschylus’ drama was truly pushed to the boundaries of authenticity. Although perhaps these are boundaries that it would have been okay to break.

The action really came into its own, however, in the second half of the double-bill: The Cyclops. The theatrical digestif after the feast of tragedy, Euripides’ rarely performed Satyr play infuses Odysseus’ infamous sojourn in the land of the Cyclopes with the comedic touch of the wily Silenus (Saul Bailey) and his motley crew of trouble-making Satyrs, animal-like beings with a penchant for the vino.

Odysseus (Ilya Wray) and the Cyclops (Saul Barrett & Jude Ashcroft), (Image Credit: Zoe Birkbeck)

Together with the band, now gracing the stage in the guise of the Cyclops’ hapless heard (with a remarkable talent for comedic timing!), this well-known tale was infused with life, colour, a touch of high camp and a healthy dose of ‘he’s behind you!’ in a way Julian Clary would have been proud of.

All that was missing was a Pantomime dame to complete the Palladium Pantheon of Ilya Wray’s Odysseus-cum-handsome prince and Jude Ashcroft and Saul Barrett’s Cyclops, bought to life with some remarkable puppetry.

The fine balance between authenticity and modern appeal seemed here to be perfectly struck. Where the former half of the double bill certainly had to grapple with the far trickier task of breathing life into a tragedy that seems to retain the very essence of authenticity, the latter half however, in its fearless pastiche of the classical and the modern, seemed to speak to something universal, undying, and far too easily forgotten: the power of laughter.

4/5

The Cambridge Greek Play runs at The Cambridge Arts Theatre until Saturday 22nd October 2022, 2:30, 7:30pm. 

Tickets available here.

Feature Image Credit: The Cambridge Greek Play Society

Related articles recommended by this author:

• The Vamps: Songwriting, Spiders and Shots
• I spent my first Cambridge year doing everything except work
• A Cambridge term in Spotify playlists