10 hours ago
2
Ancient Greek literature teems with contested burials, as someone in Philip de Voni’s drama points out. There is one at the centre of this play, too, about the power struggle and culture clash in a mixed Cypriot-British family after its patriarch dies.
In 2009, in Nicosia, Aristeia (Lucy Christofi Christy) insists her late brother be buried in the Cypriot mountains, in a practice that goes back generations. But his British wife, Jennifer (Ruth Lass), demands her late husband’s body be taken to England, as was his dying wish, she claims. So Aristeia’s keen sense of sacred tradition is pitted against Jennifer’s arguments on freedom from a cultural rite that her husband did not value. Both attempt to reel in the younger generation: Jennifer’s daughter, Penelope (Han-Roze Adonis), and Aristeia’s niece, Xenya (Chrisanthi Livadiotis).
The backdrop features a more public sacrilege – the interred body of the former president, Tassos Papadopoulos, has been stolen, we hear. The legacy of British colonial rule also hovers between the warring women.
It has the makings of a highly charged drama, with echoes of Antigone and a face-off between Jennifer and Aristeia as the last will and testament is read out. But it does not quite work out that way. De Voni’s debut play has ambition and weaves big, original ideas together around our ownership of the dead and the intersection of belonging, culture and the land. But you do not feel the force of these ideas, and the characters are flimsily built. Some are barely there, such as Jennifer’s second husband, Dominic (Sam Cox), who is little more than a vehicle of the plot.
Meanwhile, Penelope carries echoes of Odysseus’s patient wife, left behind for his adventures. She feels her own sense of parental abandonment and it slowly becomes her story, along with that of her mother’s responsibility and guilt, but you never feel as much for her, or any of the characters, as you should.
Directed by Kerry Kyriacos Michael on Cory Shipp’s stark traverse stage set, some scenes are effective, particularly the clashes between mother and daughter, and Jennifer and Dominic’s discussions about love, death and togetherness. And there are some deftly written scenes, full of complicated emotion, but the actors do not quite do them justice.
Soupy musical interventions do not help, bluntly dictating mood changes to give the drama the sound of a TV melodrama. Where this play excels is in the smooth tying of the ancient and modern. It is a shame it feels so static and ponderous, too much a discussion of ideas. At over two hours, the play’s promise and potency are ultimately dragged down by its pace.
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At Theatro Technis, London, until 22 February
English (US)