I have a confession to make: I only chose to review this show because Helen is the name of my cat. Sometimes, critics have little to go on in making their choices. But as I watched Oblivion Theatre Company’s avant-garde take on the Helen of Troy mythos, I was struck by the ironic similarities between the piece and … well, my cat. The Helen Project, like my calico, is all about feminine beauty. The Helen Project, like my calico, also makes a lot of noise, most of it confoundingly unintelligible, but attention-getting nonetheless. Unfortunately, in terms of sheer entertainment value, my calico wins the contest hands-down for being a more pleasant way to spend one’s time.
What Oblivion Theatre Company has done here is to create a kind of mish-mash, excuse me, collage of scenes, songs, performance art, and movement to make a statement on how feminine beauty functions in society and the perfidy of love and sexual attraction. I think. They use the story of Helen of Troy (daughter of God and mortal woman, the face that launched a thousand ships, the epitome of beauty, the archetypical feminine icon) as a springboard for various musings on how women have been treated and mistreated throughout the ages. We get to see how feminine beauty can wound, how it can cause its bearer to be wounded, how an arresting face and a lithe body can be used as a tool for manipulation and how a woman can be punished simply for possessing those things. We get to see how women can use their feminine wiles and how their feminine wiles can be used against them
I think.
Oblivion Theater Company gives us no place to get inside their thinking in this grab bag of culture, which ranges from influences as far afield as Homer to Marilyn Monroe. Only Oblivion knows for sure what they’re attempting to say with this scattered piece that has zero cohesion and zero entertainment value (if you want to see the nifty trick of transforming 1-1/2 hours into three, come see The Helen Project). Good theater, indeed good art, should be open to a wide range of interpretations, but ultimately there should be some authority to the voice behind it. This effort offers us no such authority, and offers us nowhere to turn in trying to fathom what’s being said, or why we should give a damn.
I will credit the cast with at least going at this mess with energy and enthusiasm. Each performer slipped effortlessly in and out of dozens of characters and did so with a convincing air of skill and credibility. It’s just too bad that the show made so little sense.
I have to wonder who The Helen Project is for. Fans of the avant-garde (the crowd who might be found at the Neo Futurarium, or the Lunar Cabaret) would be disappointed because even at their most obtuse, the work at those venues is usually imbued with wit and charm, which The Helen Project sadly lacks. Serious scholars of Greek mythology might be drawn by the idea of the show, but would be mortified by its execution and would find little that truly relates to the Helen story. And last, people who seek an entertaining evening of theater would be completely lost, and, like me, furious at having their time wasted by this self-indulgent and nonsensical production.