“I can say with 100% certainty that if you don’t stretch, your muscles will ache and you’ll feel like your body is being torn apart by Zeus himself,” said Jake Beals, sophomore theatre major.
He was explaining the struggle of the 90-plus minutes he was going to spend chained to a chunk of wood without a break on the stage of the W.D. Powell Theatre. The issue with this is that Beals is a very animated guy. Before I could even get the chance to interview him, he jumped up from his seat and erupted into a monologue and waltzed up onto the stage. The entire time he was making dramatic hand gestures and waving his arms.
Clearly, being tied up for an hour and a half is difficult enough for him, but now he was going to have the added challenge of keeping an audience entertained at the same time. This is because he is the lead role in the play Prometheus Bound, which has been adapted to be set in the deep south during the 1930’s.
“This past semester, in the spring, [Professor Burke] had a severe heart problem,” said Cayley Cantwell, senior theatre major. “He was very close to dying, and that’s when his daughter sent him a blues soundtrack that really resonated with him.”
Cantwell explained that it was the soundtrack and the near-death experience that inspired the peculiar adaptation. The idea of adapting Greek mythology to the early 20th century southern United States isn’t new. The Cohen Brothers did it with O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a movie inspired by Homer’s The Odyssey.
When I walked into the theatre, I could immediately feel the old southern atmosphere. The moss hanging from the stage, an old stump on stage left and a rotting log on stage right gave a great visual representation of the swamp that the play took place in.
I looked to the left of the stage and saw a guy with grey hair and a full beard just plucking away at his guitar. A melancholic, bluesy tune had me in a trance while he took a sip out of his drink from Cook Out. It was sad, but not in a way that makes you want to cry. It was more like the kind of sad that makes you tired and drained, which is exactly what I think they were going for.
Eventually, it was time for the play to begin. Burke walked out in front of the stage to tell the audience a little about the play and the people who have worked so hard to make it. He jokingly mentions that this particular play isn’t exactly one that’s meant to be “enjoyed.” It’s supposed to make you think.
“Everyone is like Prometheus sometimes,” Burke mentioned in his director’s note of the play. “We face the abuse of power and we use our own power to manipulate. And we all have been crushed by injustice of various kinds.”
I think that pretty much tells you exactly what you need to know about this play. It isn’t meant to be put on for laughs. It’s meant to get people to reflect on themselves and the world we live in.
Cantwell talked about how the play depicts a guy who has been beaten and tortured and a woman who is being forced to marry a god who has more or less raped her, and yet they both cling to this seemingly eternal hope, a hope that seems to be almost a foreshadowing of Christ.
“The sovereign God who, 500 years before his incarnation, is reminding Prometheus that He is a God who is our salvation,” said Burke in his director’s note. “Who loves us where we are, and who is the only just God, able to deliver us from ourselves.”
Tickets for Prometheus Bound can be purchased outside of Cobo for $5 or at the door for $7. The show runs at 7:30 p.m. on Friday night and Saturday night and at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday afternoon, with two closing shows Monday and Tuesday night. More information can be found on the theater’s website.
Picture by Tamara Friesen