BLOODSPORT: AFTER HELEN OF TROY

Stratford East

★★★★★

“Dockery and Aikman are mesmerising in this tale of two women torn apart by events”

There is a brief scene in the recent blockbuster film ‘The Odyssey’ in which we see Helen restored to her position in Menelaus’ court after Troy falls. She is scarred and bowed, a reluctant wife-slave again.

Not so in Ava Pickett’s Bloodsport: After Helen of Troy. Helen, played by Downton Abbey’s Michelle Dockery, is indeed bloody and shocked as she is dragged back from the fighting into the pristine Essex home of her former best friend Cee (Laura Aikman), but she is by no means bowed.

Pickett is surely one of our most up and coming writers. Here she gives us a feel of Mike Leigh’s ‘Abigail’s Party’ early on then Yasmina Reza’s ‘God of Carnage’, and if she borrows from both, then the dramatisation offers the best of tributes. Pickett has also just co-written the script for Baz Luhrmann’s upcoming film Jehanne d’Arc so, maybe battle scenes are familiar territory. She sets her take on the return of Helen firmly in modern-day Essex but the ancient parallels are joyously clear. Troy has become a series of street wars and burnings, set off by Cee’s pugnacious husband Mario (Gerard Monaco) to redress the insult to his friend Marcus (Jay Taylor). This is, of course, the disappearance of Helen after a pick-up in a bar by lounge lizard Paris.

Mario is all fists, fight and fury and wants to go for a victory drink down the pub when he returns. He brutally ignores Cee’s carefully planned champagne celebration. Marcus is conciliatory and weak, just glad to have his family back together but, guess what, he is under Mario’s spell. So the two leave.

And that is the signal for the true nature of the play to emerge. There have been laughs aplenty for the audience up till now. Suddenly we are in much darker territory. Against an unmistakably suburban interior (Polly Sullivan) Director Lisa Spirling uses lighting flashes and explosive sound (Nicola T. Chang) to punctuate the change in tone. Helen gets over her simulated daze, pulls on black combat pants over her underwear and takes over Cee’s home as a fortress for her own female troops, including Cee’s apparently dozey maid Dani (a great performance by Maimuna Memon).

Dockery and Aikman are mesmerising in this tale of two women torn apart by events, with truths to face. There’s a wonderfully well-conceived ‘Messenger’ – Ethan Moorhouse – who introduces and holds the narrative line together, in a rapidly spoken Essex patois (full of profanities) commenting, Greek chorus like, on the unfolding drama.

There isn’t a redundant performance here or one that does not deserve praise. Spirling was introduced to the play when it was first written as part of a New Writing Programme and now brings it to fruition through skilful deployment of, as she says, a ‘ridiculously talented’ cast and creative team. She has delivered an ensemble backing for the two leads in which every player is clear and distinct in their roles. The courageous and shocking finale itself marks a remarkable departure from traditional theatrical outcomes. This play is one for the awards.