Penelope’s Man Troubles - A Review of Enda Walsh’s New Play
For admirers of Greek mythology (or those who had to read it in high school), Penelope expounds on one piece in Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey, a story about Odysseus, a hero who takes ten years to return home after fighting a decade-long Trojan war.
Meanwhile, his wife Penelope, who’s not sure if he’s dead, dutifully waits for Odysseus anyway because, well, she’s a woman, and basically, this is how shit goes down in the Greek days.
The problem is because Penelope is so hot she has to fend off every dude that wants her, which is virtually EVERY guy on the planet.
This is where Walsh begins his play—twenty years after the war, Penelope, while old, remains hot and single, and left to fend off the last four men who are still breathing and vying for her hand in marriage.
Some might call this perseverance. I call them reject junkies. The men, who are now fat, bald, drunk and (I’m almost certain) mildly retarded live in a swimming pool, located away from Penelope’s home because she finds them disgusting. They drink, pontificate on nothing, wear speedos and bathrobes all day and can’t figure out why, oh why, does Penelope not see them for their inner beauty.
The plot begins 20 minutes into the play, where, like in all Greek mythology, the four men’s futures are predicted in a dream that they all share—Odysseus returning home and going Terminator on their asses. This gets them running scared and the men devise a plan for one of them to quickly win over Penelope’s hand in marriage and take over the kingdom so that Odysseus doesn’t kill them.
I’m sure the Greeks are familiar with jealousy and revenge so why they thought this stunning plan of marrying Penelope was going to save them from her big, bad husband is a mystery.
-Courtesy photo by Robert Day-
While Penelope has some great lines and funny scenes—such as the monologue by Dunne (Denis Conway) where he prattles aimlessly about his love for Penelope as she watches from afar, and montage by Quinn (Karl Shiels) who thought the best way to win her love is to dress up as a lady—it leaves the audience wondering why Walsh chose to tell this small tale of such a big epic.
The plot to win Penelope is simply a back story to Walsh’s admirable attempts to ponder life’s meaning of love and death, a common theme in Greek mythology. And it is in facing imminent death, that the men consider the existentialism of love and the evolution of their lives. However, what we miss in the men is the connection to why we actually care about them. Walsh does not provide any real character development in the beginning to establish our genuine understanding of who these men are, leaving us to watch them carry on their lunacy without much thought or consideration.
Rather, Walsh relies on developing these characters through their monologues, which had some poignant moments, and would have been fine if they didn’t run too long, and at times, felt forced.
While I get these men squandered their lives, I wonder if I'm suppose to feel sorry for them. They don’t have exactly the most redeeming qualities and continue to lack a basic self awareness which explains why they are deluded into thinking that they can win Penelope.
Who's a hottie.
With a husband like Batman. On steroids.
Get the picture?
If the point of the play was to delve into the concept of death and love, I’m not convinced that it needed to be told through the story of Penelope.
After all, there are so many other Greek mythologies that Walsh could have borrowed from that would have had better characters and plot lines to carry such a hefty message.
For a play eponymously named, Penelope has no lines. Perhaps Walsh used her character as a symbol for the unattainable, and a consequence of the tragedies that will face these men.
Yet, I wonder, what it was that she wondered? After all, she’s got to deal with these men day after day.
Frankly, it would’ve been nice to see an epilogue of when Odysseus returns home and Penelope realizes that the ONLY reason why he took ten years to get back was because he got fucking lost somewhere at Mount Doom and refused to ask for directions.
Lucky girl.
Penelope by Enda Walsh, The Studio Theater, Washington, DC, March 15-April 3
Keep it loud
