Theatre review: Bloodsport: After Helen of Troy

It's been a summer of rewriting and reinterpreting the House of Atreus, and after Simon Stone gave us a version so loose it was unrecognisable, and Benedict Andrews a comparatively faithful one that took an abrupt turn into a different story altogether, Ava Pickett decides the only way left to take the story is Essex. Bloodsport Colon After Helen of Troy takes us to the part of the return from the Trojan War that doesn't get looked at much by the original Greek Tragedies: What happened when the woman an army spent a decade trying to bring home actually got there, and what did she think about that homecoming anyway? Helen (Michelle Dockery) was never abducted; she just met a charming and handsome foreign man called Paris in the pub, and realised that the life she'd been living wasn't the only option available to her.

So she left her husband Marcus (Jay Taylor) and ran away, but her old life wasn't ready to let her go. Particularly Marcus' controlling older brother Mario (Gerard Monaco,) who took his dislike for both his sister-in-law and foreigners, and turned them into riots, and eventually a decade of civil war.

A seemingly meek and broken Helen has finally been captured and brought back to Mario's home, but is she really prepared to go along with the men's version of the story that says everything is back to how it should be? Despite the presence of a Chorus-like Messenger (Ethan Moorhouse) it takes a little while for the details of the modern Trojan War Pickett has constructed to properly come together, but eventually the way racism and misogyny have entangled to create viciously opposed armies starts to become uncomfortably familiar.

There's a lot of strands here for Pickett to explore, not least of all the way the narrative can be twisted to make the woman the villain in her own story - Helen is demonised in many versions of the original myth, and the way this modern version of her is blamed for war crimes committed by the men feels straight out of the tabloids. But the evening's main conflict is between Helen and the Clytemnestra expy.

Cee (Laura Aikman) is her oldest friend and now sister-in-law, and unlike her Ancient Greek equivalent has stood by her husband's actions, accepting his version of the story, including the part about how their daughter's death was nothing to do with him. Helen hopes that confronting her with the truth will bring her back to her side, in a plan that also involves Cee's cleaner Dani (Maimuna Memon.)

1536 was good but I didn't see how it garnered quite such a rapturous reception; although uneven, for my money Bloodsport is the more striking play in its ideas and execution: Lisa Spirling's production juggles the horror behind its story with the banality of its suburban setting to both dramatic and comic effect, whether it's a wounded soldier (Joshua-Alexander Williams) staggering around Polly Sullivan's blandly luxurious set, or Helen's pregnant daughter Hermione (Emma Monnickendam) coming round to ask what mum's been up to for the last ten years.

But possibly because of the many years I've spent complaining about Multiple Ending Syndrome, what may stick with me most is the way Pickett goes in a very different direction to deliver a climactic coup de théâtre: Proving once and for all that you don't need to tap into every argument and last word your characters might be thinking of; and that sometimes it's worth leaving things unsaid, messy and with questions hanging in the air as the audience leaves.

Bloodsport: After Helen of Troy by Ava Pickett is booking until the 10th of October at the Theatre Royal Stratford East.

Running time: 2 hours including interval.

Photo credit: Pamela Raith.