E-mail to a friend Find tickets

A Brief History of Helen of Troy

Published Thursday 6 October 2005 at 13:40 by Roger Malone

Schultz’s Stateside play is a powder keg of teenage angst that explodes in a shower of dramatic pyrotechnics. Gritty dialogue and raw emotion are the fuel that propels us through the dysfunctional world of Charlotte.

Andrea Riseborough is mesmeric in the role, oscillating between aggressive and vulnerable. Her quest for love is tangibly painful as she tries to come to terms with her mother’s death and emotional neglect from her father.

Riseborough brilliantly explores the gaucheness and in-your-face attitude of this tortured American adolescent. The pain is suppressed as front is everything. Naively seeing the offer of a ‘blow job’ as a way to win the love she craves, Charlotte is set on a rollercoaster ride of expectation and rejection.

She also provocatively puts forward the intention of being a porn star as a way of grabbing a successful career during discussions her guidance councillor (Hugh Lee).

Here is a motherless girl seeking her own version of love and believing sex is the key. Schultz neatly draws a parody between Helen of Troy - a subject for Charlotte’s school lecture - and Charlotte’s deceased and much-missed mother.

While she is branded ugly by her mourning father, she has a champion in Jaimi Barbakoff’s sexually informed Heather, whose mission is to beautify and enlighten her feisty friend.

Locked in his own torment, Charlotte’s stilted father (John Sharian) tells her she can never be pretty. His panacea for pain is being transfixed by the news from Bagdad on the telly.

Fantasy and fact blur in Charlotte’s life with disconcerting consequences in this Euripides-inspired play that explores complacency culture and the politics of beauty. This excellent production is directed with flair by Gordon Anderson.

E-mail to a friend Find tickets