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The Snoring The theater company has been poking fun at the foibles of actors for years, especially in comedy. It’s Going Wrong list. His early music questions whether all the egos, heated arguments, technical differences and hammy situations can be part of the world’s first sports team. Did proto-thespians in ancient Greece struggle with one-star reviews and attract big fans? Maybe they played Zip, Zap, Boing and settled on their motivations?
Little is known about the real Thespis, the father of tragedy in the sixth century BC. Co-writers and musicians Jonathan Sayer and Ed Zanders show him on the arid island of Ikaria and show his odyssey to Athens, where he competes in the Eurovision song contest at the behest of a merciless tyrant and finally discovers the art of acting with his friends. Opa!
Heralding shoestrings production values is a Mischief staple (the Greek chorus numbers this, er, two) and there are some notable mixes here, with sure-footed vocals and simple vocal playing that often lends itself to vocal music. Sayer and singer Zanders have covered all aspects of the theater’s repertoire, from the song “I Want You” to the opening double, the bandit song and the 11 o’clock number.
There’s an understated, sometimes sentimental sound in the middle, but the music grows stronger as the evening progresses and includes Kander and Ebb spoofing Old Man Tango, with a geriatric chorus that tends to cause backaches. Elsewhere, the sound – from Ben Smith’s ensemble, which is between Jasmine Swan’s off-kilter instruments – is more Sondheim than Rydell High in a show called Greece the Musical (But Not That).
James Spence gives us Thespis stunned by his success, Luke Latchman admires him from afar while Atlas and Marc Pickering sneak apples under his skirt as a vulnerable Adonis (the type of dimwit Sayer likes to play). In the panto-esque adventure directed by Robyn Grant, you follow the Thespis’s sister, Poly (Claire-Marie Hall), as you do Rhys Taylor’s Tyrant (wearing one of Swan’s costumes, including the headgear). There’s also a lovely fortune teller, Melampus (Mia Jerome), whose predictions about the future of the play are haunted by Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats, like Thomas Nostradamus in Something Rotten!
You want Hermes to use magic to speed up the ending and it could benefit from a zippier workout to boost Melody Sinclair-Marsh’s performance. But what sets these Evils apart is the abundance of heart and soul, as practice teaches our Ikarian community the importance of compassion. It’s as much about paean to being with good people – in life as it is in theatre.
