Theatre review: Paradise

Kae Tempest's Paradise was originally due to run in the Olivier last summer, which makes it the latest rescheduled show to have me wondering how much rewriting or reimagining it had over lockdown - one of its themes is of people who've been isolated for some time, baulking at the thought of returning to the outside world. Then again this new version of Sophocles' Philoctetes is so full of themes and musings that it would no doubt strike some topical notes at any time. Certainly in light of the last few days' news, it finds an instant relevance in the setting for Ian Rickson's production - a dusty Mediterranean or Middle Eastern refugee camp, where the chorus of women (Claire-Louise Cordwell, ESKA, Amie Francis, Sutara Gayle, Jennifer Joseph, Sarah Lam, Penny Layden, Kayla Meikle and Naomi Wirthner) talk about wars that, after decades of fighting and death, only ever go round in circles when they look like they're about to be resolved.

At the start of the Trojan War, the famous warrior Philoctetes (Lesley Sharp) sustained a leg injury that got infected and rotted. With the smell making the other soldiers nauseous, he was tricked into being taken to a remote island and dumped there to die.

But a decade later he's still alive, despite the wound remaining painful and festering, and Odysseus (Anastasia Hille) has been told by an oracle that Philoctetes, and the bow of Hercules which is in his possession, must come to Troy if the Greeks are to break the stalemate. He has to go back to the island and retrieve him, but there's a problem: Odysseus was the one who tricked Philoctetes in the first place, so he'll never trust or willingly help him. Enter Neoptolemus (Gloria Obianyo,) son of the late Achilles: Odysseus hopes that being appealed to by his old friend's son will lower Philoctetes' defences and, with false promises of a return home, get him on the ship back to the war.

Structurally Tempest's version of the text is faithful to the conventions of Ancient Greek theatre, with a few notable exceptions: The scenes are all largely static confrontations between two of the leads, with occasional, mostly ignored, interruptions by the Chorus; the Chorus themselves are the voice of outsiders, left to the side as the men argue, their dialogue often in rhyme and, in the case of Aunty (ESKA, also composing the show's music alongside Stephen Warbeck,) sung. But they are a more modern Chorus in having individual personalities, agency, names, and in the case of Meikle's Tayir, an attempt to get herself taken along into the main storyline. There's also a big change to the original ending, that gives the play a satisfyingly cyclical nature, and a bit more onstage action and violence than the original rules strictly allow, stopping the play from stagnating into still scenes. (Rae Smith's set, in an Olivier still in its in-the-round configuration, takes over one of the seating banks to make a raised camp for the women, which also helps embrace the audience and not make the action seem too distant and static.)

There does seem to be a distinction in Rickson's all-female production between acting styles depending on whether the cast are playing women or men: The Chorus women are much more earthy and naturalistic, the three male characters are played in a much more mannered style, as if to suggest the women know and accept the bleak world they've inherited and have no pretence, while the men are nothing but pretence and show. Sharp's Philoctetes is an exaggeratedly gruff, self-sufficient old soldier, at times almost an Andy McNab parody of stories of a heroic past and living off what he can kill. The archetypal spin-doctor Odysseus is downright sociopathic in the way he exists at a remove from his actions; the way Hille plays him he doesn't just need an intermediary because of his personal history with Philoctetes, he needs one because he's unable to even fake the level of empathy needed to trick him to his face. And that intermediary ends up the most enigmatic character - Obianyo's Neoptolemus starts as a blank slate with no life or war experience, and by the end it's unclear which of the older men he'll turn into - a gruff, blunt instrument with a wish to remain honourable in a dishonoured world, or a coldly pragmatic, manipulative general who uses violence and torture with surgical precision.

As a full-length Greek tragedy Paradise largely holds the interest, in part through a surprising amount of (often sardonic) humour in the first half of the play; things get increasingly bleak in the second half, which is probably why the sudden return of comedy stands out as the most memorable line when the Chorus attempt to disinfect Odysseus' wound with garlic and oregano ("I'm not a fucking pizza!") There are missteps here and there - Tempest has removed all references to the Greeks and the Trojans, making the context universal and the real-world parallels clear enough without the need for a slightly too on-the-nose state-of-the-nation rant from Philoctetes. And the late suggestion of a past relationship between Philoctetes and the Chorus' Yasmeen (Wirthner) comes way too far out of the blue to work, and in fact contradicts everything we've seen of him dismissing their presence until then. There are lulls, but Paradise is for the most part able to hold the interest through one of the more obscure Greek tragedies, which could easily get mired in the characters' convoluted arguments and personal histories.

Paradise by Kae Tempest, based on Dr Helen Eastman's literal translation of Philoctetes by Sophocles, is booking until the 11th of September at the National Theatre's Olivier.

Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Helen Murray.