“The struggle here is between a woman’s self-determination and a man’s entitled possessiveness — a world-shaping dynamic rooted in traditional gender roles. This staging mutes that essential resonance, though, with a clownish Menelaus who needs to but never does evoke masculinity.”
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“While 'Helen.' spends a lot of time declaring its heroine’s liberation from those ancient prisons, it spends much less filling her out as a human being, rather than an agency-seeking missile...With Chaos as a narrator, you might well think you need to strap in and hold on tight, but though 'Helen.' incorporates plenty of anachronism and breezily un-Homeric banter, the play never really diverges that far from the larger contours of its source material.”
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“This is an all-female cast and female-themed presentation on womanhood where each in their time plays many parts gender be damned, save one. I’m curious, with the subject matter being so female-oriented and what the play is trying to discuss so female-focused, why they held to the save one. It weakened the piece. I get what the play is trying to say, I’m on board. The presentation drifts away on its own.”
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at its juiciest when presenting the story of this alluring figure from Ancient Greek mythology as if she is a twenty-first century housewife, with anachronisms that are both amusing and pointed…. But such moments are not frequent enough in this ninety-minute play… “Helen” is less Real Housewives of Sparta than Surreal Artists of the Avant-Garde.
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"Helen." is a new play by Caitlin George based on Greek myths that is being given a terrific production at La MaMa by SuperGeographics in association with La MaMa and the storied company En Garde Arts. The acting is top-notch, the direction excellent, and the lighting (by Jackie Fox and Connor Sale) is atmospheric and evocative.
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