Ovid's Metamorphoses

Unlike the lucky performers, who only have to find a good story or idea, develop it for the stage and engage their audience through skilfully engaging their emotions and intellect, the poor critic is torn by uncertainty. Every peyote drive vision quest I take, every sleepless night or overcast Sunday afternoon: they are all dominated by the same existential question. For whom I am writing?

If it is the show’s potential audiences, Pants On Fire’s staging of Latin poetry is easy to discuss. Go and see it. It captures the lush language of Ovid, condenses unfamiliar tales into blasts of dynamic humour, reinvents a few classics and delves into the more universal aspects of the great Roman myths. Running at about ninety minutes, it is fast-paced, imitating the discursive structure of the Metamorphoses and bringing them back to contemporary relevance in a dark finale. Four stars, no question.

On the other hand, speaking to the company demands a little more critique. There are two brilliant ideas at work: the use of a vague 1940s style of dress and atmosphere, alluding both to wartime and post-war Britain; the use of Ovid’s text for a cabaret style series of songs, sketches and direct storytelling. And while the choice to use big chunks of the original (translated) poem is a reminder of how lively and richly descriptive Ovid can be, and the cast excel in switching roles and techniques, these two brilliant ideas run parallel without touching.

The reason for using World War II as a setting is never really clear. Indeed, the witty number about Teiresias’ dual sexual identity suggests a Weimar Republic setting would have been even more effective. The ending, which does the obligatory doom and gloom outlook, tries to link the carnage of the Blitz to an ongoing battle between Man and Nature, is not enough. Any disaster would suffice. The 1940s does provide a platform for some great flights of imagination. However the brilliance of the devising suggests any era would have given them the same boost.

For the strict classicist, the ending is the only part that doesn’t get Ovid’s personality right. His poetry is generally know for a cheeky sensuality, somewhere between hipster Casanova and a Carry On Rhyming dirty old man. Ovid is most famous for being chucked out of Rome after penning an early edition of the Lovers’ Guide and possibly slipping more than a stanza to the Emperor’s daughter. He doesn’t cut it as a Jeremiah, even if his word are read in a Winston Churchill voice. This doesn’t matter theatrically – art is free to twist the facts, and Ovid twisted the old myths to fit his themes – but it exposes how the concept battles the content.

Finally turning to the broad theatre community: Ovid’s Metamorphoses is a nice object lesson in both how to entertain and educate, concentrate on the actors rather than the set, use the actors’ many talents and reinvent a potentially dead subject. It also warns about the dangers of not connecting the Big Idea with the Actual Story. It’s like a version of King Lear set in outer space. It seems funky, but doesn’t really add anything beyond a surface sheen.
And there’s that other critical existential doubt: does this sort of criticism disguise my enjoyment, my emotional engagement and intellectual appreciation of Pants on Fire’s witty and excellent show?