Storytelling, masks, tales told direct to the audience – this feels like how Greek theatre might have been
By Catie Ridewood
Director, sound & light design Janette Eddisford
Tech/SM Erin Burbidge
Performed by Catie Ridewood, Lorraine Yu and Sophia Mastrosavaki
Sybil Theatre is a new feminist theatre company based in Brighton. That Witch Helen is their first production.
The title refers to that special treatment that’s always been reserved for women, in gossip, the press and now online, and it has a very long history.
Whether she existed or not, Helen has had a very bad press. Abandoning her 9-year-old daughter and husband, running off with a cute boy, causing war that cost countless lives through selfishness and lust? But born of rape, a child mother through rape, that daughter a child sacrifice?
A power invades another land for taking what’s ‘theirs’ – and the punishment begins. Assaults, murders, taking and destroying, it’s not hard to see the parallels today, in the news, on social media.
Ancient Greek myths, legends and lies and the problematic nature of the lauded Greek ‘hero’ are under a critical lens here.
Eddisford directs three athletic, elemental creatures, with powerful voice and physical presence, Yu and Mastrosavaki’s shifting transformations led by Ridewood’s visceral powerhouse Helen.
Ridewood’s writing blends and contrasts the stylised formal language and presentation of Greek theatre, with naturalistic teen girl dialogue and free spirited larking about.
Fleshings indicate nudity, robes, wraps and masks flow through costume changes for different characters, the men masked and stylised grotesques, the women whispering behind screens, huddled together in panic, or taking the stage as friends and confidantes.
Storytelling, masks, tales told direct to the audience – this feels like how Greek theatre might have been – but this time the women’s voices are heard, anger and rage stabbing through this happening.
Philippa Hammond May 2024