Once upon a time, according to Greek myth, there was a colony of creatures called Gorgons. They looked like women (beautiful women, some say), but instead of hair, their heads were crowned with writhing, hissing snakes - a sight so terrifying that a single glance would, literally, turn mortals to stone.
The best-known of these femmes fatales was Medusa, whose claim to fame is that she was slain by warrior-assassin Perseus, under the orders of King Polydectes. That's one version of the story.
Andrew Lang, in his 1889 anthology of folk tales, supplied a touch of Victorian sentiment by having Perseus' mother taken hostage by the rapacious king, who then demands the head of Medusa as the ransom for her release. For this debut production by Mythic Proportions Theater, however, author/choreographer Andrew Boyer draws on several sources to render up a yarn at once cognizant of contemporary issues while still steeped in heroic lore.
In Boyer's account, Perseus is a young musician who illegally copies songs from the royal libraries, making him vulnerable to arrest by a tyrannical monarch looking to be rid of troublesome stepsons. The doubts that fret the young hero are likewise prevalent in 2008 - was his mother complicit in sending him away? Is he really the product of a romance with a pastoral deity, as she told him, or just a groupie-gone-wild accident? Should he abandon his assignment to find his own way? His guardian muse advises him along humanitarian principles, but his victories must frequently be won at the price of deception and coercion as cruel as the sacrifices he, himself, undergoes on his journey to manhood.
Heroic myths, to be sure, often entail violent deeds founded on unethical motives, but they also require mystery to elevate itself above mere dirty tricks. Boyer provides this by declaring his primary narrative language to be dance - that most abstract of tools for emotional expression. Under his direction at the preview performance I attended, the nine-actor ensemble ( especially the trio of Kate Froehlich, Jennifer LaTurner and Amy Sherman, playing three kinds of Weird Sisters ) delivered imaginative spectacle - a Pilobolus knot of bodies is transformed into a mountain pass, while a simple length of rope or a red silk curtain assume a multiplicity of roles-with an infectious vigor wholly redeeming the sometimes hesitant vocals.
Nathan Rohrer's ingenious costumes and masks reflect the melding of classical and modern ambience, as does the uncredited sound design.
