Review: Penelope by Enda Walsh (Druid Theatre Company)
Enda Walsh’s Penelope is a captivating hybrid of Greek myth and Irish characterisation. It appears to be baking under an Ithacan sun, but its characters have voices soaked in the grey of more northerly isles and names that underscore that origin. It’s not the first example of an Hibernian cowl worn over the shape of antiquity: James Joyce’s Ulysses is the most prominent one but Marina Carr, Macnas and Barrabas have also toyed with the trope in recent years. Penelope’s collision of anachronistic elements is a back story to The Odyssey: four suitors (Niall Buggy, Denis Conway, Tadhg Murphy and Karl Shiels) vie for the hand of Odysseus’ wife (Olga Wehrly) before his prophesied return, and their destruction at his hand. They reside at the bottom of a bloodstained swimming pool, listlessly discussing the taste of heat, and heat has them stripped to togs and gowns. The set, as one … There’s more
