Early in Homer's original Odyssey, Odysseus meets the god Proteus, who often eluded those who sought his prophecies by changing into a series of puzzlingly different creatures.
Working out this show's aims feels not unlike trying to pin Proteus down: part autobiography, part mock epic, part basic puppetry, part comic banter, it slips repeatedly out of your interpretational grasp and leaves your emotions baffled.
As audience members walk into the Barbican's Pit, they are greeted by a dark space that boasts only three large white blocks as stage props. Soon a stage-manager scuttles out from behind the curtain with a bucket and broom, and a brush sticking out of his back-pocket like a pre-evolutionary tail. He claims that the audience has arrived too early: the actor playing Hector is not ready.
But Hector never emerges in his full Grecian glory on the stage: and in true comedic and subversive tradition a number of alternative stories are provided for the crowd's delectation.
The show gets off to a slow start, as Karagiosi - the character who offers cleaning implements in place of armour and heroic deeds - makes observations such as, "I don't like theatre, I like television," and makes tempting remarks about the audience member nearest the exit being a "number one professional theatre-goer".
Performer Andreas Litras reveals during the show's autobiographical parts that although he is Australian-born, both his parents were Greek - but his portrayal of a comically eccentric Greek stage manager is stalely stereotypical. As he pours water into a washbowl and asks the audience if anyone wants to go to the loo, you can feel your expectations disappearing in the same direction.
Litras becomes temporarily appealing when he warms to his meandering theme. The Odyssey, he argues, is less an adventure story than a study in homesickness, and this is his departure point for narrating how his parents moved from Greece to Australia in search of wealth. Unfortunately, even though only a Medusa could fail to be moved by Litras's story, as a whole this mixture of comedy and pathos does not work. Visually unexceptional and dramatically incoherent, it leaves you stranded on an island of indifference.
Odyssey
