BLAIR WOYNARSKI
Arts Writer

Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven
Far journeys, after he had sacked Troy’s sacred citadel.
Many were they whose cities he saw, whose minds he learned of,
Many the pains he suffered in his spirit on the wide sea,
Struggling for his own life and the homecoming of his companions.

Sound familiar? Unless you’ve taken a classics course recently, probably not.

Those lines begin one of the oldest surviving stories ever told by humans. And that story has now travelled from the shores of Ancient Greece to the heart of Saskatoon, where the Greystone Theatre is mounting a production of The Odyssey.

It is safe to say that the word “epic” is overused these days. You can hear people say, “Yeah, that YouTube video of the hamster on water skis was epic,” or something like that. So it is nice to be able to reclaim the word “epic,” that the drama department is staging a play of epic proportions. There is an ocean voyage, a cyclops, a trip to the underworld and a story full of love, murder and betrayal.

For those of you who were hung over that day in high school or never saw Wishbone as children, I’ll recap the story.

Odysseus was away from home fighting the Trojan War for 10 years. But when it ended, he was somewhat delayed in getting home thanks to an ill-advised taunt which angered the sea god Poseidon.

Now, another decade later, his kingdom is overrun by suitors who want to marry his maybe-widow Penelope and stake their claim to his throne.

Odysseus has spent seven years captive on the island of the nymph Calypso, and when he finally gets free thanks to help from Athena, he travels to a nearby island kingdom where he tells everyone the details of his miraculous journey. Then he finally returns home in secret, to discover what has happened to his kingdom.

Natasha Martina directs the production. She says that her initial challenge was to find a play that could accommodate the 23 actors in the senior acting program and provide a challenge to each one of them. The Odyssey posed as a very interesting opportunity because of the size and scope of the myth. Martina, known for taking on staging challenges, says that she wanted to “create the possible from the impossible.”

The script that Martina is staging is the 2003 dramatization by Mary Zimmerman (Zimmerman’s version of Metamorphoses was performed at the Globe Theatre in Regina this past fall). She looked at a few versions, but said she returned to Zimmerman, finding the language worked best, because “Zimmerman uses the lyrical voice of the text and blends it into the modern day. It exists in two worlds.”

Actors in the play are completing coursework, so Martina had to give them a lot to chew on. Almost everyone involved is playing multiple characters, and they have been rehearsing in some form since the beginning of the semester. To start off, each actor had to do an in-depth research project to understand their characters.

Alyssa Bennett plays Odysseus’ wife Penelope (in addition to various small roles), and talks about how her understanding of the character changed during the process.

“There is this image of her being the virtuous, sad queen,” she said. “But she’s actually quite proud of herself. She’s a schemer and she likes it.”

But the biggest question is how to take this sprawling epic and put it on stage. It will be quite a spectacle, with the constant shifting of boats, and with such creatures as the Scylla, the Cyclops and the Sirens.

“It’s going to be very big and full of images,” Martina said.

The set is going to be so big within the confined theatre space, Martina advises all audience members to keep their limbs close to their seats.

One cast member, Emily Dueck, said that one of her favourite parts of the show is the Scylla, which is basically them working with a 10-foot puppet.

Jordan Svenkeson, another cast member, enjoys the slow-motion combat.

“It brings the feeling of those epic Greek movies like 300 but the dialogue is more fanciful,” he said.

It has been an intense process for all the actors involved, and they have had to bring the full force of their creative abilities in order to interpret the characters in a way that stays true to the story but also resonates with modern audiences.

“They’re always surprising me,” Martina says of her cast.

People reading this are probably not going to embark on an epic sea quest in their lifetimes, duelling with gods and monsters. Watching The Odyssey is a pretty good substitute. It offers a generous dose of drama and adventure, and, let’s face it, it’s not often the high seas come to Saskatoon.

The Odyssey runs March 23 to April 2 at the Emrys Jones Theatre in the John Mitchell Building. Shows are 8 p.m. nightly except Sundays.

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image: Pete Yee/The Sheaf