Free online from 5 April
Reviewed by Claire Roderick
Arrows & Traps’ online festival of reimagined Greek myths ends with two simply glorious plays. The ongoing narrative of Zeus’ trial for countless rapes, assaults and murders becomes more prominent, alongside the contrast between the gods – trapped by their fate, even with all their powers – and humanity’s freedom of choice.
Aphrodite
5*****
Arrows & Traps pull out the big guns – love and war – in Ross McGregor’s latest play. Aphrodite and Ares love each other, but Aphrodite is gifted to Hephaestus as his wife by Zeus as compensation for his previous banishment from Olympus. Heph’s gentle love is something new to Aphrodite, and Ares realises she is lost to him, exacerbating the torment and rage he already carries. So, Aphrodite sends him to therapy with Calliope.
In the 21st century, Aphrodite’s temple is a bar – Propoetides Salon (worth googling) – and we see her true self in her private rooms away from her adoring public, while we get Calliope’s point of view during Ares’ sessions as he begins to bare his soul – both strands of the story are, as ever, beautifully lit and shot. These two gods seem to have grabbed their fate by the throat and throttled it as they bitterly carry out their purpose. Aphrodite decides to rule with the sharpest weapon in the universe – love. Her disgust when a wine bar opens next door, and her vengeance on the manager when he declares that his daughter is more beautiful than the goddess demonstrates that her focussed wrath is as terrifying as Ares.
As Ares, Buck Braithwaite is often painful to watch (I mean that in a good way) as he portrays the trauma of war and PTSD so brilliantly and the wooliness that medication sometimes brings on Ares’ path to recovery and some form of peace in a wonderfully detailed performance where a violent outburst always seems imminent.
An early, seemingly light-hearted section about the gods finding a niche in the modern world sees Aphrodite dipping her toe in the crafting market, but she isn’t allowed to make anything – and this theme builds throughout the play as Aphrodite discusses children. The power and beauty of McGregor’s writing and Benjamin Garrison’s performance will have you in tears as Garrison breaks down and voices the lasting agony of multiple miscarriages and the longing to be a mother. Garrison is magnificent – his Aphrodite can be a terrifying and magnetic Queen Bitch and a pitiful desperate aging has-been, and everything in between.
The story of Zeus’s trial moves on, with the surprising, and satisfying, whistle-blower revealed. War and the longing for motherhood aren’t the cheeriest of topics, but there are some very funny moments. The celebration of love in all its forms is wonderful, and a few characters from previous plays pop up to ensure a hopeful ending for the two gods.
Just like being in love, Aphrodite will make you laugh, cry, break your heart and fill you with hope.
Icarus
5*****
The trial of Zeus becomes more prominent in the final play in Arrows & Traps Talking Gods season. Icarus is a reporter working on the big story, but he has family tragedy to cope with as well after the sudden death of his father.
Icarus remembers the game he played with Daedalus as a child with a gentle wonder, but soon pulls himself together to recount the funeral in a very matter of fact, very English way. Returning to work, he interviews Hestia about Zeus’ trial, and being a god and REALLY understanding the human mind, she tells him that Dionysus did not kill his father but that he should not investigate.
Dionysus is facing trial for killing Daedalus in a hit and run after a stag night, just as Daedalus’ space probe finally nears the sun, but Icarus’ re-examination of the evidence clarifies something disturbing and he continues to dig, despite Hestia’s advice to simply spend time with his family to heal and enjoy being a father. His quest for the truth is as obsessive as his father’s search for knowledge about the sun and he visits Ariadne.
We first see Ariadne recalling the same game that she played with her father, before she recounts her experience of lockdown as an actress. Bright, bubbly and energised as she talks about performing, she is not so ebullient talking about her personal life and family, and Lucy Ioannou captures the deadness and shame behind her eyes as she touches the bandages on her wrists.
The two characters’ story intersect as they realise the bond that exists between them, and their journey to find the truth behind Daedalus’ death leads them to the underworld to ask him themselves. The limbo that Ariadne finds herself stuck in with theatres shut down and her profession devalued, as well as being a carer for her brother, is escaped as she performs for us to show what unfolded in the underworld. Ariadne plays Eurydice, Persephone, Icarus and herself in the crucial scene where Eurydice’s advice is to choose to stop looking to the past and move on to recover.
Adam Elliott delivers a beautifully nuanced performance as Icarus – quiet and steely at times but melting like butter as he talks about his baby daughter. The gentle soulfulness of Icarus contrasts with Lucy Ioannou’s captivating portrayal Ariadne’s more playful but fragile nature, and the building chemistry between the actors is lovely. McGregor has described the last half hour of Icarus as a love letter to fathers and the theatre, and it is an exceptionally written, performed and paced section that will move even the stoniest of hearts, with a glorious movement piece from Ioannou. The need for play, storytelling and theatre in our lives and the vacuum felt without it intertwines with the realisation that flawed men can still be incredible fathers and leave meaningful legacies to create something truly beautiful.
Free on demand: https://www.arrowsandtraps.com/talkinggods