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Theater review: 'The Trojan Women' at City Garage*

November 12, 2009 | 6:00 pm

A high level of invention suffuses "The Trojan Women" at City Garage. Deconstructing Euripides' classic tragedy into a multifarious current-day collage, adaptor-designer Charles Duncombe and director Frederíque Michel pull few punches in the wake of burning Illium.

The geopolitical realities in Duncombe's freewheeling text range from harrowing statistics of recent genocides to sardonic swipes at our blog-infested society. Darfur, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, overpopulation, climate change and more punctuate the same gender positions that have driven this saga since its Peloponnesian War premiere.

Hecuba (June Carryl, magnificently composed) suggests a traditional African queen, clothed at the outset by title mourners whose burkas are but one of costumer Josephine Poinsot's inspirations. Cassandra (Mariko Oka) devolves from culture vulture to a naked, feral creature of website contours. Andromache (the touching Amelia Rose) turns the society trophy wife into a figure of post-millennial pathos, rending against Troy Dunn's quietly insidious Greek envoy.

And when an assured Alisha Nichols turns up as Helen of Troy, here a Britney Spears clone with nude dancing boys and hip attitude, her face-off with Michael Galvin's intense, Billy Connolly-flavored Menelaus crystallizes the enterprise. Dave Mack's empathetic diplomat, Crystal Sershen's understated Hermione and Cynthia Mance's entertainment reporter are among the other standouts in a marvelous ensemble effort.

Dividing focus between the keening women and the marauding men, Duncombe gets a slew of modern context in (Euripides is understandably absent from the credits). The approach risks overload, some things unnecessarily explained, and director Michel occasionally struggles to keep the tone consistent. Still, if the aim is to yank "Trojan Women" into our consciousness, this company benchmark, though overstuffed, is a triumph.

– David C. Nichols

"The Trojan Women," City Garage, 1340 1/2 4th St. (alley), Santa Monica. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 5:30 p.m. Sundays. No shows Dec. 14 through Jan. 8. Ends Feb. 21. Adult audiences. $20. (310) 319-9939. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.

*UPDATE: A previous version of this review misspelled the first name of Alisha Nichols as Alicia.

Photo: Marika Oka as Cassandra in "The Trojan Women." Photo credit: Paul Rubenstein.

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"It's too smart and too passionate to dismiss"

In his adaptation of the ancient Greek tragedy (So freely swiped from the original that Euripides' byline doesn't appear on the program), Charles Duncombe takes a macroscopic, brutal and unrelenting look at the end of the world. Genocide in Rwanda and Sierra Leone, unsustainable population growth and climate change carry the day, and the play, with excursions into a theme that's punctuated Duncombe's earlier adaptations of texts by Sophocles and Heiner Müller: the relationship between gender and power. Scenes depicting physical mutilation and rape in war zones - choreographed by director Frederique Michel - contain an excruciating authenticity, even in the abstract. Michel undercuts this harrowing tone by incorporating elements of farce in other scenes. One scene is a gem of understatement and humor: The reunion of fluttery Helen of Troy (Alisha Nichols, attired like a dancer in a strip club, and employing all those powers of manipulation) with the Greek king Menelaus (stoic, furious Michael Galvin) from whom she fled and started this bloody mess (the Trojan War, that is). This is where the adaptation and direction congeal and captivate. This is still very much a work-in-progress, conceived for all the right reasons. As is, the directorial tones wobble like a top, and the adaptation contains far too much explication. The evening also reveals why theater matters, and how this kind of work wouldn't stand a chance in any other medium. It's too smart and too passionate to dismiss. City Garage, 1340½ Fourth Street (Alley entrance), Santa Monica; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 5:30 p.m. ("pay what you can"); thru Feb. 21. (310) 319-9939. (Steven Leigh Morris) See Theater feature on Thursday