Thijs van Vuure (composer / musical director), Gerrit Komrij (translator), Bart Van den Eynde (dramaturg / adapter), Pascal Leboucq (set designer), Alva Brosten (costume designer), Varja Klosse (lighting designer), Dennis Slot (sound designer)
Daniël 't Hoen, Zorba Huisman (assistant directors).
A rock band Greek chorus introduce us to an epic battle and a tragic love story, one in which both elements are taken to extremes.
The warriors may be heroic, pitting Achilles, the best of his nation against Penthesilea the Amazon queen, but the culture clash battlefield is transformed into one of gender, men against women and love is placed at the heart of this confrontation.
When the Trojan forces are routed by the army of Amazons their purpose is not to kill all men but for each female warrior to defeat and capture the male warrior she will marry during the celebration of the war’s brides. When Achilles and Penthesilea seek to disarm each other a deceit of looks and gazes will set the star-crossed lovers on a path that undoes the myth of Romanticism. Love becomes a deadly game of control, power, honour and glory in place of trust and surrender.
The first “half” (it’s a straight through 125 minutes without interval) sees the ensemble band, clad in an androgynous but sexy mix of almost all sheer black, set out the backstory as their instruments fly in and out from above the almost bare stage. While it might reflect the rigidity of the societies it enforces awkward movement. Music permeates the performance from rock to pop to Siren songs.
Arrows and sparks fly when the two meet in battle and the carmine red of roses from the marriage festival lead to a bower of petals and a slick sensual mucous embrace. The “sacred orgy” becomes “ecstasy without restraint”, the would-be lovers could eat each other up. “Kissing and biting live side by side, and the one who loves from the heart easily confuses one with the other.”
The red foreshadows that their societies have no room for their form of love and Penthesilea’s nihilistic fury will result in the utmost disastrous and bloody consequences.
The production is intense, passionate, visceral and absorbing while managing at its heart to deliver a tragedy.
Show times: 3 to 5 August 2024 at 7.30pm. 6 August 2024 at 2.30pm. (Post-show talk 4 August)
Tickets: from £19
Notes: Performed in Dutch with English surtitles. Contains strobe lighting, flashing lights, loud noises, blood, nudity, sexual themes and depictions of suicide and extreme violence.