Theater Online - New York Theater Reviews

Ellen Stewart, a grande dame of downtown theater, concentrates her creative energies on Greek myths. She brought Jerzy Grotowski to America in 1967 and her productions are influenced by his physical concept of theater. Stewart's adaptations and extrapolations from the Greek have sometimes leaned quite heavily on spectacle, and her new play Perseus is a spectacular based on a story that will be familiar to any childhood viewer of Clash of the Titans. It helps to be familiar with that movie, for Perseus is sung entirely in Greek.

Stewart introduced the play herself, and admitted that she was frightened: the company had never done a full run-through before this first performance. Stewart, who was confined to a wheelchair due to a foot injury, is a compelling theatrical spectacle in her own right, wholly unconcerned with the prosaic. So it's rather surprising that her version of Perseus is as earthbound as it is.

Perseus is basically an action-based story; it doesn't really have any particular psychological resonance. The play begins with King Acrisius (Renaurd Gee) caging his daughter Danae (Kim Ima) in a tower, where she is ravished by Zeus (Arthur Adair). The God of Gods descends from a rope in the ceiling. This is an impressive athletic feat (Perseus is full of them) but it begs the question: why would Zeus need to skitter down a rope to get to Danae“ The actor playing Zeus needs this rope, but Zeus himself would not. So, it would seem logical to portray the Gods in non-human form, say with effects of lighting or some other theatrical conception, rather than have an actor play a God. This problem holds true, too, with the depiction of Poseidon (Peter Case), who wears a goofy bright blue wig, and even the actors who play kings and queens. There's not enough regality in their movements, not enough command in their gestures and emotions.

In the title role, Chris Wild has no such problems; he fully inhabits the primal world of the play. He seems heroic and innocent, studly yet slightly ironic. When he is asked to fly, with the aid of a harness, his face, which looks like two sharp, thin romantic profiles stuck together, fills with poetic euphoria. Wild performs the most striking of the plays acrobatics, lowering himself from the ceiling and holding himself in the air with nothing but a blue scarf. The control Wild has over his body in this scene feels almost superhuman. He makes a perfect center for the play.

There's a lot of pageantry in Perseus, a lot of processions and swirling fabric (the costumes by Camille Assaf are really superb). But the play is incredibly over-produced, so that your eye is held less by the tale itself than by the peek-a-boo tunics and masks and derring-do. The scenes don't feel connected to each other; the story of Perseus is action movie material, which Clash of the Titans took advantage of. On stage, the tale of Perseus is an excuse for flash and spectacle at the expense of emotion. It's never boring, though, and the athletic feats, especially Wild's dangling blue scarf routine, have a testing-all-limits simplicity that feel authentically Greek.