Armadillos by Colleen Wagner opened at Factory Theatre last night.  It’s really quite complex and I’m grateful for having had the opportunity to meet with cast and crew to discuss it last week.  It’s simultaneously a play about two different takes on the myth of Peleus and Thetis and a sort of meta-theatrical questioning of which stories we tell and how they affect us.  In the process it examines ideas about the origins of patriarchy and oonsent/non-consent in sexual relations.

The set up involves a touring company of four actors so we each as both “themselves” and a character in the Thetis play.  Zeus, played by Jay, played by Ryan Hollyman, is violently consolidating his power after his victory over the Titans by suppressing or subordinating goddess worship.  Hera, played by Sofia, played by Zorana Sadiq, has reluctantly signed up to the new order.  Zeus is trying to use the young goddess Thetis, played by Karmyne, played by Mirabella Sundar Singh, to trap her non-cooperating grandmother Gaia.  This is complicated by the fact that this older version of Thetis is still worshipped in her own right and isn’t overly eager to accept a junior role in Zeus’ new pantheon, let alone acquiesce in the personal services role he has in mind for her.

Zeus, of course, has the hots for the young and attractive Thetis but Hera is aware that there’s a prophecy that Thetis’ son will be greater than his father and determines to get rid of Thetis by marrying her off to the human hero Peleus, played by Dyrk, played by Paolo Santalucia.  Thetis realises what’s going on and buys just enough time to let Zeus have his way with her.  Zeus is portrayed as ruthless, brutal and oversexed and his relationships with the two women definitely flirt graphically with the murky line between consent and coercion.

Act 2 opens backstage.  The various characters discuss their relationships and love lives.  Karmyne and Dyrk are both doing drink and drugs pretty heavily and Karmyne appears to arrange a hookup on the Internet pretty much every night.  They end up together for the night.  Meanwhile Jay and Sofia flirt/don’t flirt around their failed relationships but just when it seems that they too are about to hook up Jay disappears to some other liaison.  All this comes back to haunt the next day’s performance.  Karmyne and Dyrk haven’t turned up so Jay and Sofia have to improvise.  We get a pretty straight reprise of the beginning of Act 1 from Jay before Sofia starts to change Hera’s lines to suggest she isn’t buying the Zeus as patriarch thing at all.  Dyrk, not in costume and obviously still stoned shows up and stumbles through his part.  There’s a sense that Order is being replaced by Chaos in this particular cosmogony.  Finally Karmyne appears costumed as Thetis and plays out her older, pre Zeus, myth with Dyrk.  This is the version where Peleus is the suppliant bridegroom of Thetis, rather than the divinely sanctioned rapist of the classic version. She gives him the three sacred snakebites that symbolise the death of ego and the marriage of both human and divine and equal male and female principles.  A different cosmic order than that of Zeus is postulated as a possibility.

Making all of this clear dramatically is obviously a considerable challenge and it’s impressive that it works so well as theatre without seeming preachy or didactic.  It’s greatly helped by Jani Lauzon’s deceptively straightforward direction.  Characters come and go with entrances for divine characters highlighted by the lighting plot.  It’s all quite spare and direct letting the words do their thing.The subtle way in which the final scene transforms from a reprise of the play’s opening to something quite different is both profound and very funny.  In fact juxtapositions of that sort are key to what works.  One minute we are laughing at the sheer incongruity of a situation, for example Zrus unable to handle a raging erection, and the next we are watching a graphic and disturbing sex scene.

Performances are strong too.  Hollyman gives us a gruesomely awful Zeus while, as Jay, he reveals a vulnerability that borders on despair.  Sadiq does something similar but her best bit is the way she seamlessly subverts the Act 1 reprise without appearing to leave character as Hera.  Singh is brave.  It’s easy to forget how young and inexperienced she is but she manages to transition from playing almost a schoolgirl (albeit a divine one) to coping with some of the most graphic sex I’ve seen on a Toronto stage.  It’s impressive.  Santalucia too manages two very different personalities.  There’s the hero (complete with battle rifle) who quite matter of factly explains why he sometimes tortures people and sometimes just kills them while being utterly subservient to anyone remotely divine.  And he transitions this to the happy go lucky kid (maybe) who enjoys drug fuelled sex with whoever, to the “out of it” Peleus who stumbles through the story he doesn’t know at the end.  It’s an impressive quartet.

This is exciting and disturbing theatre.  It’s sometimes very funny and sometimes quite shocking.  The story has multiple twists but a solid central core and the execution is excellent.  It’s the sort of play that would probably benefit from being seen more than once but you certainly should manage at least that!

Armadillos continues at Factory Theatre until June 24th.

Photo credits: Jeremy Mimnagh