Ariadne’s Thread (an island odyssey)
Too Close to the Sun @ North-South Dining Room
6:00pm, Mon 23 Feb 2004
Score: 8
Short Review: Supple
Talya Rubin’s one-woman show is clearly a deeply personal affair. Beginning life as a collection of poems inspired by her own experiences on an island in Greece, she has added elements of mythology and humour to create a quite beautiful piece of theatre.
Driven by shame to isolation on a remote island, the central character Sally is gradually accepted into the hearts of the locals and, with their help, undergoes a transformation into an emotionally stronger person. The use of multiple threads of Greek mythology aids the process, principally the story of Theseus and the Minotaur – from which the play gets its name.
Rubin’s performance is wonderfully agile, lithe – and she manages to convincingly become many characters at will (with the exception of Theseus, whose representation seemed quite underdone). In particular, her personification of both a bull and Pasiphae (as they copulated!) was fabulous. The only possible fault of this piece is that it is perhaps too dependent on its poetic origins; Rubin’s geographical descriptions, whilst eventually painting a rich picture, are often gangly and awkward. Still, there is much to be recommended here.