For more than 25 hundred years, Homer's epic poem The Odyssey has inspired and provoked artists of all kinds.
Now a new theatrical version is makings its U.S. debut in Portsmouth.
As NHPR Correspondent Kevin Gardner reports, this Odyssey has a decidedly contemporary twist.
SFX: Solo violin states main musical theme of play, fading under following….
GARDNER: THE OPENING MOMENTS OF THE NH THEATRE PROJECT’S NEW VERSION OF HOMER’S ODYSSEY ARE LIKELY TO MAKE AUDIENCE MEMBERS FEEL ALMOST AS DISPLACED AS ODYSSEUS HIMSELF.
THAT’S BECAUSE, INSTEAD OF THE MYTHICAL HERO’S ENCOUNTERS WITH GODS, MONSTERS, OR THE UNMANAGEABLE OCEAN, THE PLAY BEGINS WITH HIS ABRUPT DETENTION BY THE HOMELAND SECURITY FORCES OF AN UNNAMED MODERN STATE.
SFX: Dialogue from opening sequence;
â€What country is this?â€; Interrogation beginning; fading under following…
GARDNER: UNDER INTERROGATION, OF COURSE, ODYSSEUS BEGINS TO RECOUNT THE FAMILIAR OUTLINES OF HIS EPIC TALE.
BUT AS THE PLAY’S DIRECTOR BLAIR HUNDERTMARK POINTS OUT, THE SURPRISES DON’T STOP THERE.
HUNDERTMARK: (2:18) …what I really love in what the playwright, David Farr, has done is in the juxtaposition between the present and the past, we just keep going back and forth and back and forth and we ask the audience to buy into that…
GARDNER: THE PLAY RAPIDLY SHIFTS SCENES FROM THE DETENTION CENTER’S INTERROGATION ROOM TO THE ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN SITES OF ODYSSEUS’S ADVENTURES.
WE VISIT THE DRUGGED-OUT LAND OF THE LOTUS-EATERS (SFX: CLIP),
ENTER THE STINKING CAVE OF THE CYCLOPS, POLYPHEMUS (SFX: CLIP),
AND THE ISLAND OF THE DANGEROUS GODDESS CIRCE, WHO TRANSFORMS ODYSSEUS’S MEN INTO PIGS (SFX: CLIP).
ALL OF THIS IS PERFORMED BY A CAST OF JUST SIX ACTORS.
BLAIR HUNDERTMARK SAYS IT WAS A MAJOR CHALLENGE JUST KEEPING THINGS STRAIGHT, FOR BOTH ACTORS AND AUDIENCE…
HUNDERTMARK: 4:28 Absolutely. Some of these scenes, they come in for three lines and then go back, we’ve actually trimmed a couple of the set transitions down…(3:43) but…we had be very precise in when we were in the past and when we were in the present so, costume choice, prop choice, set choice material was very deliberate - There are very specific choices made that help the audience know where we were in time.
GARDNER: HUNDERTMARK’S STAGING IS SUPPORTED BY AN ORIGINAL SCORE FROM SEACOAST COMPOSER AGNES CHATSWORTH.
SHE FACED SIMILAR CHALLENGES IN THE PLAY’S CHRONOLOGICAL SCHIZOPHRENIA.
BUT SHE FOUND HELPFUL COMMON GROUND IN THE HISTORY OF MUSIC ITSELF.
CHATSWORTH: :35 …it was clear that there was a combination of the ancient, try to represent the ancient Greek…and the contemporary, so I didn’t make any attempt to make it really really authentic but I did spend a lot of time listening to stuff…I mean a lot of our scales really derive from Greek arithmetic and Greek scales, I mean we still use the ones, in names, like Phrygian, Aeolian, they’re Greek scales, so I really tried to work that in without working it too hard….
GARDNER: RECONCILING MUSICAL ERAS SEPARATED BY 2500 YEARS WAS TOUGH ENOUGH.
BUT CHATSWORTH ALSO FACED THE ADDITIONAL CHALLENGE OF THE PLAY’S MANY DRAMATIC STYLES, FROM HUMOROUS TO TRAGIC TO OTHERWORLDLY.
CHATSWORTH: (6:30 ON…) Blair said it was all a little bit carnivalesque, a little fanciful, a little surreal….that sense of a little of this a little of that….
GARDNER: CHATSWORTH’S MUSIC FOLLOWS THE SCRIPT IN OCCASIONALLY SURPRISING WAYS.
AS IT TURNS OUT, FOR INSTANCE, ODYSSEUS IS NOT THE ONLY UNWILLING GUEST AT THE DETENTION CENTER.
IT’S ALSO HOME TO A GROUP OF REFUGEES FROM TROY, THE CITY ODYSSEUS SACKED AND DESTROYED BEFORE HIS VOYAGE HOME BEGAN.
IN YET ANOTHER STRANGE TWIST, PLAYWRIGHT DAVID FARR IMAGINES THEM NOT AS TRAUMATIZED VICTIMS, BUT AS RESILIENT SURVIVORS GIVEN TO OUTBURSTS OF SONG!
SFX: Snatch of Trojans’ “No one believes us, anyway…†song, fading under following.
GARDNER: THIS SHOW’S CALLING CARD IS EXTREME STYLISTIC VARIETY, FROM RAUCOUS MUSICAL COMEDY TO DARKLY DRAMATIC STORYTELLING.
BLAIR HUNDERTMARK, WHO NOT ONLY DIRECTS BUT ALSO PLAYS ODYSSEUS, SAYS THAT THE PLAY’S DISPARATE THEATRICAL AND MUSICAL PERSONALITIES ALL SERVE TO DEVELOP ONE CENTRAL IDEA.
HUNDERTMARK: (5:33) The theme in the play, the overarching theme, is essentially home and how are you defined by home and who are you when you’re not home, if you’re displaced from your home….
SFX: [10 music…..choral version of main theme, FADING]
GARDNER: ALL THIS LEADS TO PERHAPS THE MOST STRIKING DEPARTURE FROM TRADITIONAL TELLINGS OF THE ODYSSEY.
THAT'S THE REACTION OF THE DETAINED TROJANS WHEN THEY DISCOVER ODYSSEUS’S TRUE IDENTITY.
BLAIR HUNDERTMARK:
HUNDERTMARK: and at the end of the play there’s a wonderful moment when the Trojans, who are displaced, find out who Odysseus is and they have the choice to kill him, to revenge the deaths that they’ve just sung about, danced about and recounted, and instead they take a moment to look at each other and rise above that, and realize this is just one person, he’s just like us, he has no home, we have no home, we’ll help send him on his way. And it’s very touching moment in the script…
SFX: Clip of underscore or song, fading under following, then re-emerging to fade again…)
GARDNER: THE NEW HAMPSHIRE THEATRE PROJECT’S THE ODYSSEY FINISHES ITS RUN AT PORTSMOUTH’S W.E.S.T. STUDIO THIS SUNDAY.
FOR NHPR NEWS, I’M KEVIN GARDNER.
