Later they turn into fan-brandishing dancers from a Ziegfeld revue. One moment the maids are an antiphonal Greek chorus the next, recounting Odysseus' travels, they become white-suited sailors straight out of On The Town. But the sheer virtuosity of the production undermines the pathos of their plight. In fulfilling Penelope's cunning plan of distracting her wooers during the nightly unravelling of her woven shroud, they end up being raped by the suitors and killed by the hero. The problem lies in giving theatrical voice to the 12 maids.
Recalling her ability to appreciate Odysseus' endless bedtime stories, she remarks, "It's an underrated talent in women." As an Atwood heroine, Penelope is a wily, pragmatic survivor blessed with a strong caustic wit.
Accordingly, we see Penelope, from the vantage-point of Hades, re-capping her story: marriage as a 15-year-old to Odysseus, a 20-year isolation during the Trojan War and her husband's subsequent peregrinations, her skilful outwitting of her predatory suitors. But, while it has bags of inventive vitality in Josette Bushell-Mingo's production, it remains a visualisation of a literary conceit: narrative theatre without the escalating tension of drama.Īs Atwood says, it is a composition for two voices: that of Penelope herself and of the 12 maids cruelly hanged after Odysseus's return. Now Atwood has dramatised her re-invented myth for an all-female show jointly presented by the RSC and Canada's National Arts Centre. I loved the pithy brilliance of Margaret Atwood's book which viewed The Odyssey from Penelope's perspective.
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