You are in a museum: the Bunyan and Craig Museum, a sign in front of the StAge stage announces (shoutout to Mark Bunyan, writer of this show, and Andrew Craig – very generous supporters of musical theatre in this town). It has pillars, and a statue of a woman (all this in white and unpainted, so you know it’s a neoclassical museum’s idea of Greek history), and a toy figure of Chiron. A man in a very shiny chestplate and a helmet (Sam Morrison – Achilles) appears and tells us we are in a museum (very meta, someone next to me says), and that he is Achilles, but he is a statue. Soon Musical Director Lucy McQuilkin begins to conduct and Pianist Fred Hickin begins to play (heroic performances from both of them throughout the play, and it’s very nice to be able to see them right next to the stage), and Sam poses appropriately while the cast (the museum’s visitors) in chorus recount the myth of Achilles as it is in Ovid’s Metamorphoses – but that ‘it wasn’t quite like that’. Very meta. The lights (Maggie Madden) go rainbow! Ben Stockil (Patroclus) starts beatboxing, and Nicole Gibson Morales (Thetis) starts rapping, with a glorious inflatable fake mic.
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| ID: The cast in a line holding out glittery hats to the audience. |
We enter the world of the myth, and Sam reappears – in heels! Roll credits! And a lovely blonde wig! And a lovely orange tunic! And what nice toes he has too. And sisters – in equally nice tunics, posing to form an impressive tableau: Eleanor White as Diodeima (the straight one), and Eve Williamson as Thea (the gay one). Elena Bello’s costumes are wonderful throughout, and I love the combination of the very Ancient Greek clothes with the absolutely modern trainers (or boots, in Eve’s case (the gay one)) everyone except Sam (heels – but imagine if they were heelies! Now that would be a brilliant show) wears.
Nicole Gibson Morales’ Thetis is mother (literally), and is also extremely meta, simultaneously the play’s storyteller and playing herself as a character, and commanding every scene she’s in. Isaac Thompson-Gibbs’ Odysseus is another scene-stealer: he plays a very artificialised very camp baddy, a very British aristocratic perv who hates his wife and loves war profiteering (for oil – olive oil!), with grand gestures and a surprising amount of tongue – and he even makes a kickline appear, hats and all! Eleanor’s singing voice is glorious, and so is her puking voice. Her every movement and position is controlled, but also endlessly funny. Poses are very important: everyone has extremely good posture, and the choreography (Isla Groves) is constructed out of profiles and good funny poses and tableaux – much like Ancient Greek painting! We really are in a museum.
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| ID: Eve Williamson, Sam Morrison, and Eleanor White posing. |
Sam’s Pyrrha/Achilles is very sweet and charming, and charmingly simple and in love, and likes girly frou frou things. There were plenty of times when I felt a connection between my own experience as a trans woman and the character on stage; there were also several times I felt a little confused and put off. This is a show from 2003 – which is why there’s so much stuff about war in it (unfortunately continuing to be relevant today, though I don’t quite understand why Thea’s quite moving anti-war song is so focused on Trojan Women except as a way to reference Euripides (Euripides’ lost Scyrians being one of the oldest testaments to this part of the Achilles myth)). The Iraq war started in 2003, and in 2003 Section 28 was repealed. How difficult was it to portray queerness on stage back then, I wonder (the answer is lost to time – there’s a lot of talk of ‘3000 years ago’ in this show, and I think 2003 was probably about that long ago)? Maybe we’ve come a long way. Every romantic relationship except Achilles and Patroclus is straight (Thea (the gay one) doesn’t get any sort of love interest), and the reframing of Achilles as a woman makes that romance a sort of ‘failed’ straight relationship; a mask for the ‘love that dare not speak its name’ – therefore perhaps more excusable in a more heteronormative society? The script has been rewritten to some degree to remove elements that would be read as transphobic today, but ultimately we get total unclarity over Achilles’ identity, which just feels awkward. Achilles the myth is definitely a man; usually a gay man; often a brutal awful gay man, and I think any possible imagining of him as a trans woman conflicts awkwardly with that. This crossdressing episode of the myth was a popular subject of plays and opera from the Renaissance onwards, with Achilles very often played by a woman. I can’t help but think – if you want to make Achilles trans, why not make him a trans man?
Anyway, Achilles in Heels is a very fun night out: it’s rare to find a show as much good fun as this is in St Andrews. At the end of the show everyone is freeze-framed into a tense momentary happiness (see Keats, ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’), before starting singing and dancing again – things don’t have to be absolutely perfect, or perfect representation, for them to still be very enjoyable. Grab your tickets for the second night!
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other erin