In recent years there’s been a resurgence of Hollywood movies inspired by Greek myths and history. The latest, 300: Rise of an Empire, opens in cinemas this week.
But the movie won’t have the approach of Unmythable, being staged in Wellington by Britain’s Temple Theatre. The New Zealand Festival show has three actors squeeze about 70 Greek myths – some in detail, others a fleeting mention – into one hour. Paul O’Mahony, Paul Hutton and Leon Scott play a multitude of characters and there’s many a quick costume change. It also includes songs in different styles, from a Stephen Sondheim-style musical number, to rap, blues and folk protest.
The result, a hit at the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, is largely played for laughs. But director Mike Tweedle, who co-founded Temple Theatre with O’Mahony, says audiences have still been taken by surprise by what they’ve seen.
“It drew people in on a comic premise, but it went a bit beyond their expectations.”
Tweedle says this was because Unmythable covers some of the lesser known myths, as well as the best known, including Jason and the Golden Fleece.
Hutton says it was also their approach. “I think the audiences in Edinburgh were surprised at the variety of ways that we were trying to tell these stories. It’s not one style. There’s a lot of physical theatre. There’s clowning, there’s comedy, there’s drama. We just wanted to find many different, exciting and vibrant ways to attack these old stories.”
Unmythable isn’t the company’s first show drawn from ancient Greece. In 2009 they collaborated with playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker for an adaptation of Euripides’ tragedy Hippolytus and their previous show Out of Chaos mixed Greek myths with personal stories. But Unmythable is the first Tweedle and O’Mahony show to include musical numbers. It was also their first attempt at writing songs.
“It was just screaming out to be a musical,” says Tweedle. “So we embarked on a really new journey. We collaborated with a musician and composer to refine those [songs] and that just took it to another level. A song is also a great way to kick off a lot of stories and cover a lot of myths in a fun and speedy way.”
O’Mahony also crams in many characters into his own performance. He estimates he plays 16, while in one scene he crams six into one minute – or 10 seconds for each. “There are about 50 characters mentioned in the show, not all of whom really appear. [But] Jason is the one I come back to a lot.”
O’Mahony says there is the occasional reference that people who are familiar with Greek mythology are more liable to get including throw away lines like: “Narcissus, put the mirror down”. But they have deliberately made Unmythable so that no knowledge of Greek myths is required to enjoy it. “We’ve had Oxford professors coming to see it and then we’ve performed it to a group of drunk people in a comedy bar at midnight in Edinburgh. Everyone can enjoy it.”
Tweedle and O’Mahony say Unmythable won’t be their last show inspired by myths, although for their next they will change geography – it will be inspired by Norse myths and legends.
Ad Feedback
The show has also been performed in the Wellington and Wairarapa regions and the two say audience reaction has been great. It was the same response when they did their version of “taking coals to Newcastle” by staging the play in Athens, Greece.
“People enjoyed it immensely, but we were slightly worried before we went,” says O’Mahony. “We kept getting these newspaper requests for interviews and they sent over some questions. Every single newspaper request had this question of ‘do you think you are going to offend the Greeks’ “.
THE DETAILS
Unmythable, Hannah Playhouse, tomorrow until March 7, 6.30pm.
–
