Review: Antinous

When walking into Antinous earlier this evening, still significantly frazzled from Glitterball, I had very little idea what to expect from it — which is not a feeling I enjoy even slightly. In general I like to think of this theatre scene as quite predictable: the older plays are all famous and I either know them well or can pretend to know them well enough to fool all of you by reading their Wikipedia articles; and student-written plays are almost all about posh people talking about having straight sex (inevitable — reflective of the demographics of this theatre scene). But People You Know have been changing things up a little lately, and now suddenly here comes this highly-stylised short and intense play about gay sex, written by Jonathon Stock, directed by Tatiana Kneale and Calla Mitchell, and produced by Tabi Stuart, in the StAge for one night only as a part of On The Rocks!

ID: the cast on Castle Sands. Credit: Felix Saint-Bris.

The only thing I could tell about the play beforehand was that it had some relation to classical tragedy — it has only three main speaking roles accompanied by a chorus, it observes unities of action and place, and it takes place pretty much entirely in response to one big inciting offstage action (Aeschylus’ Persians-style), the famously mysterious death of Antinous. This all terrifies me, because I am a state school girlie and therefore know comparatively nothing about Classics. For instance: is there a classical reason why the chorus is wearing clown makeup or is it specifically to be alienating; or, everyone in this play pronounces Antinous with three syllables, ‘An-tin-us’, which sounds insane to me because I’ve always thought it was four clearly defined syllables, ‘An-tin-owe-us’ — and am I the insane one?

People You Know usually tend towards realism and the set here, designed by Caitlin Conway, reflects that in its level of detail. It centres on Hadrian’s bed, surrounded by beautiful furniture covered in equally beautiful set dressing of books and candles and real grapes and sexy plants and sexier bread — and a cellist in the corner, Sebastian Halbach, who is less likely to have been in the Emperor Hadrian’s bedroom. He plays sinister music during all the play’s big emotional moments, which is something I’ve really loved in every play I’ve seen it done in — here’s hoping that musical accompaniments become the next big theatre trend here. Taz Madan’s lighting is stark and bright: the bed illuminated in white with patches of light on the rest of the stage which abruptly and intensely change colour in response to the emotional action. Ana Chalmers’ costumes, going along with all this, exist out of time. Everyone’s clothes are very pretty, and they’re also colour-coded: the chorus (Luke Curtis, Brooklyn Chase, and Martha Thompson) are blue-grey, Will Hastie as Hadrian wears all black, Jonathan Stock as Ajax is half white half black, and Vida White as Sabina is in a white dress that could conceivably pass for Roman, with a gold laurel-styled crown. This colour spectrum possibly reflects their different positions and relations to duty in the play, but what it mostly does is move it away from realism or melodrama (where realism usually ends up here) into something that is allowed to be conceptual.

ID: the chorus. Credit: Felix Saint-Bris.

There are various references to historical places and events in the play but really it is best looked at removed from history or its own slightly improbable plot, instead thinking of it as a series of vignettes abstractly exploring intense emotions — also since the play is interested in uncertainty, especially the unresolved historical uncertainty of how or why Antinous died. Antinous in my head has always been more the mythically beautiful youth than the real person — the play of course is concerned with Hadrian’s decision to make him into that myth, but its abstraction from him as a character or the event of his death really has him be a myth from the start. Time flows seamlessly around Hadrian grieving in his bed, as Ajax and Sabina come in and out, with the chorus always watching on. They sometimes represent Hadrian’s advisors or repeat his inner voice, but the rest of the time just watch ominously — perhaps reflecting the remorseless observation to which the Emperor, or any actor in general, is subject.

Hadrian’s grief manifests itself in a childlike scream and rolling-around in the bedsheets at the start of the plan, then turns into deludedly trying to recreate Antinous. He variously imagines Antinous still alive, feels guilt over his death, and tries to immortalise his memory, in a way that is seized upon by Ajax, a slave trying to become Antinous to seduce Hadrian to have gay sex (yes! glory be! in a play in St Andrews this semester!) with him. He wears Antinous’ beautiful ribbon-bedecked cloak, brings Hadrian Antinous’ still-bleeding (very impressively — a sac of fake blood inside a sponge) heart, and makes it into a god. Earlier in the play he sweetly or savvily talks about the loss of his mother, one of a few reminders of how people in positions less powerful than Hadrian’s cannot afford his all-consuming grief. Aggressively opposed to Ajax is Hadrian’s queen Sabina, ambiguously in love with Hadrian and completely faithful to him but very aware of his lack of love for her. She sits up in bed looking haunting in her blue eyeshadow staring at the audience, and connects the play to the other famous Antinous, recounting and getting very hot and bothered about Ulysses’ big straight manly strength in his slaughter of the suitors in the Odyssey and sleeping with Penelope afterwards — in contrast to her own situation.

ID: Jonathon Stock, Will Hastie, and Vida White. Credit: Felix Saint-Bris.

There are an awful lot of ideas going on here! The play is less than 50 minutes long and many of the interesting directions these characters could go down are only briefly hinted at. I generally think it’s stupid to try to imitate classical theatre, but I think here it works to help concentrate the piece. The acting is inconsistent and the plot not worth paying attention to, but it is mainly an intense emotional experience, with many evocative images, and I hope that people will take from it that emotional power and willingness to try out something at least a little bit different. But it more than sold out its tickets and received a standing ovation, so maybe in fact no more encouragement to remember it is needed—in which case I’ll just say more plays with men making out with each other please!

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