‘FOR A CULTURE THAT'S SO RICH, WE DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO OFFER PEOPLE WHO ARE GRIEVING'
Troy boy
Steve Cramer talks to director Gordon Anderson about the UK debut of young American writer Mark Schultz’s A BRIEF HISTORY OF HELEN OF TROY.
‘ uppressed grief suffocates. it rages within the 5 breast. and is forced to multiply its strength.‘
So said ()vid. about 2000 years ago. It‘s strange at times to think just how much insight the ancients had into the human psyche. for the Roman poet's observations of repressed grief. and the catastrophic displacement and rechanneling that occurs as its result. might well be something straight from a contemporary book of pop psychology.
This most powerful emotion. and its link to the classics. is explored by US dramatist Mark Schultz. who. at a youngish 29. has broken through with considerable impact in New York with A Brie/History- och/rn of Troy. his first major work. In it. we meet a teenage girl who has recently lost her mother. The repression of her grief. in part created by an uncommunicative father who is obsessed with coverage of the current war in Iraq on the television news. leads her to an alarming crossroads. Perhaps not
so scary is her sudden obsession with the myth of
Helen of Troy. but her perverser related desire to become a porn star makes a terrible link to our consumer society.
Gordon Anderson. artistic director of ATC. who. in association with the Drum theatre. Plymouth. is bringing this major new work to the Traverse. joins the dots for me. ‘She‘s grieving the loss of her mother. and pursuing the idea of beauty. She wants to be loved. so she feels that if she‘s a porn star people will fantasise about her. and she‘ll be kind of loved. What‘s so interesting about this is she pursues a very rational line. which forces the audience to take a position. You can
deny that she'll be loved in the way that she wants to
be. but you can't deny her argument. I think it's part of
her world view. which says: “lfl can't get it I‘ll buy it. and if that doesn‘t work. I‘ll sell myself.”
And her particular interest in Helen of Troy displays the way in which psychological imbalance. often dismissed as a subjective condition. has some very exterior. and quite political sources. The girl‘s condition is linked to our own collective neurosis in contemporary capitalism. ‘Rather than talking to his daughter. her father chooses to constantly watch the news. And a lot of the news is about this current war.‘ Anderson explains. ‘lt interested Mark that there was this long drawn out war. against an enemy that would fight on and on. The Trojan Wars were like this. and I think Mark was interested in that parallel. So there's this war on CNN. and at the same time. there‘s this very personal story. in the case of the myth between Meneleus and Helen.’
Anderson stresses the playful. dryly humorous style of Schultz. yet it seems inescapable that there‘s a pretty solid sense of a corrective discourse under the play. particularly in relation to our attitudes to grief. ‘For a culture that‘s so materialistic and rich. we don‘t have anything to offer people who are grieving. In other cultures that are much poorer than ours. there are social
mechanisms or assumptions where people can be
brought closer in order to cope. In our culture. people battle on and seek solitude in drink or drugs or fantasy.‘ Anderson comments. Troy and make it to this one.
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Thu 27-Sat 29 Oct
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