Curious ‘Trojan’ still worth seeing

If you appreciate the skill that goes into creating powerful visual images on a small stage, and if you're enough of a Euripides fan to enjoy tongue-in-cheek references to Helen of Troy and the rest of her gang, then you're likely to have a good time at Atlas Theatre's "Trojan Women 2.0." It doesn't quite come together, but it's a welcomed curiosity that's worth seeing.

Playwright Charles Mee has built a career on updating legendary tales in an effort to modernize morality points that may seem obscure in the older text. Here, he uses Euripides' 415 B.C. "The Trojan Women" -- about the aftermath of battle -- to encompass nuclear war, the Holocaust and gender stereotypes.

Director Chris Mayse creates an apocalyptic mood with his eerie, dark lighting, his set of graffiti-strewn blocks that could represent anything from Kabul to the South Bronx, and Stephen Driggs' startling sound, which often suggests low-flying combat planes.

Enough cast members fill their roles with weight, so that we feel the story's epic sweep. Maythninee Washington makes for an elegant, defeated Queen Hecuba who must come to accept the destiny of her people. Jack Dunagan gives us a humorously boisterous and dim-witted Menelaus, King of Sparta (whose runaway wife, Helen, has caused this whole mess), and Natascha Negro as the sometimes ruthless, sometimes humane diplomat Talthybius projects such a straight-forward manner of no-nonsense war-speak that it's easy to make sense of her mixed-up heart.

The trouble is this script demands variety that isn't easy to achieve. True, some pop songs are thrown in to lighten things up -- although I don't know what's really to be gained by having, for example, Helen and Menelaus sing "Don't Go Breakin' My Heart" -- but the text itself is placed too much on one note. We simply tire of Washington screaming all the time about how rotten her life is. Mayse doesn't concern himself enough with achieving different pitches. And after two hours of wailing, even the visuals begin to feel overstated.

Still, I walked away hoping to be in the company of most of these actors again. They give these roles their all, and you don't often experience that kind of commitment. Although this script is beyond the reach (for now, anyway) of this troupe, it's obvious Mayse has some visions inside him worth sharing.

Anthony Del Valle can be reached at DelValle@aol.com. You can write him c/o Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125.