A new version by Frank McGuinness, based on a literal translation by Fionnuala Murphy

Directed by
Deborah Bruce

Designed by
Gideon Davey

Composed by
Claire van Kampen

Cast
Chorus
Holly Atkins

Chorus
Philip Cumbus

 Helen
Penny Downie

 Chorus
Jack Farthing

 Theonoe
Diveen Henry

 Pollux
James Lailey

 Gatekeeper
Penny Layden

 Castor
Fergal McElherron

 Menelaus
Paul McGann

 Theoclymenes
Rawiri Paratene
 

Chorus
William Purefoy
 

Servant
Ian Redford
 

Messenger
Ukweli Roach
 

Chorus
Tom Stuart 

Chorus
Graham Vick 

Teucer
Andrew Vincent

Musicians
Phil Hopkins
Irita Kutchmy
Dai Pritchard

‘Poetry is what islost in translation’ is a lament incessantly made. But all too often, especially when pre-twentieth century texts are translated, the lament should be: ‘anything like the original is what is lost in [this] translation’. Because of a terror lest readers or audiences be puzzled about the text’s meaning, or should even momentarily be bored by material that might seem antique and not of the moment, ‘translators’ desperately seek to fish out what might be construed as references to contemporary events, and to play up the bawdy and sensational, in whatever they are translating. Except that ‘translating’ is a misnomer. ‘Adaptation’ would be more accurate. Very often the translator-adapter cannot even speak the language to be translated, or may as well not be able to do so, since he or she merely borrows someone else’s translation of a text and adapts that translation. Unfortunately a precedent was set for this sort of practice by Christopher Hampton when he adapted Jean Anouilh’s Ring Round the Moon, and, because his adaptation actually was beautiful, witty and a work of art in its own right, other people arrogantly think they can follow his example.
      I don’t know whether or not Frank McGuinness can speak Ancient Greek, but, either way, what he seems to have done, in adapting Euripides’ Helen, is look at Fionnuala Murphy’s translation (which he credits) and jot down what he free-associates, while also of course beefing up the bawdy and inserting it in places where it didn’t exist, thus changing the tone of the play. Or, as he said in an interview that is included in the programme, ‘I have the translator on hand when I bring my theatrical sensibility to the text’. That may be meant to be good news, but in fact surely what we want is Euripides’s theatrical sensibility, and as unmediated as possible.
      Euripides’s strange premise, in Helen, is that Helen didn’t run off with Paris after all. Really she was spirited away by Hera to Egypt, where she remained throughout the 17-year Trojan War, and it was a simulacrum of Helen that Paris actually abducted. There are many fascinating suggestions in this idea, which are developed in the play itself but quite submerged in this adaptation of it: Is it better or worse that the war was fought merely for an illusion? Menelaus is of course tremendously relieved when he learns the truth, but, though the returning soldiers can now stop calling Helen a whore, surely her fidelity is not much of a consolation for all their suffering. Another theme: how much is the person we love, or rather what we love in the person, inevitably an illusion? After all, Menelaus was quite taken in by the Helen simulacrum. Or was he? Doesn’t ‘Helen’ become somebody different now he knows that after all she was faithful to him? And there is also the question: how much was Helen’s love, either for Menelaus or Paris, a matter of her own volition, how much a matter of manipulation by the goddesses?
      These and other themes, which a more faithful rendition (on paper or stage) of Helen would have conveyed, were crassly swamped in this production. The cast were on the whole excellent. The Chorus managed to combine restraint, commitment and emotion. Theoclymenes, the Egyptian King, (Rawiri Paratene) succeeded in being both convincingly majestic as well as spoilt and childlike -- tyrannical but somehow lovable. But the performance as a whole didn’t properly cohere. Penelope Downie always has enormous presence, of course, but it was wasted here. Although life-enhancing in her brimming energy, she spent far too much time rushing around in what looked like a satin nightie, and being a brash 21st century hoyden. Paul McGann was rather a weak, colourless Menelaus, and their love seemed vulgar, unconvincing and alienating, trivialising the tragedy and dwarfing the majesty of these demi-gods and heroes. Perhaps (though I doubt it) this effect was deliberate, and we were meant to feel that ultimately kings and celebrities, and their travails, are petty, and that the rest of us wrongly venerate them and fight their wars. One way of updating Helen could have been to emphasise the sequestered selfishness of the individual love story in the light of the mass havoc it had caused, to contrast Hollywood schmalz with the brute realities of death, injury, destruction. But here it seemed that schmaltz and sentimentality, though present, were unintended, and that we were supposed to be pleased at the reunion of Helen and Menelaus, and to believe in their love (it didn’t seem believable to me). And yet there was also plenty of facetious mockery and smug irreverence in inapposite places, where it went against the grain of Euripides’ original.
      It was unclear what director Deborah Bruce’s schtick was meant to be – maybe just to give the audience a riotously good time, which it largely seemed to do. Audience and cast thoroughly enjoyed it -- there were roars of laughter at any use of ‘fuck’ or inserted scatological allusion, and tremendous enthusiasm at the end, so that the production team could justifiably feel, ‘We won – we really made them like that funny old dead white male, Euripides.’
      But isn’t crowd-pleasing rather a minimal, patronising aim? Of course, there was something that remained of the original tenour of Euripides, which, along with the programme notes, managed to convey the message that war is pointless, and all the grandiose propaganda for it bullshit (which is obviously of contemporary relevance because of the Iraq debacle). That was pretty much all you could take away from this Globe production, even though Euripides’ Helen is far more subtle and interesting.
Jane O'Grady