During the interval of Dido, which is on at the National Theatre, I overheard a conversation about the play in which one person asked why there were Greek gods. 'Duh,' I thought, 'it's so they can manipulate the mortals and add a few extra bends in the storyline'.
However come the end of the play I was beginning to ask the same question myself.
Taken at it's basic thread Christopher Marlowe's play is about how Dido falls in love with Aeneas who is shipwrecked on the shores of Carthage. There is a honeymoon period then Aeneas leaves Dido to continue on his mission to rebuild Troy which breaks her heart and she kills herself.
Now if they'd stuck with that it could have been a good, simple tragedy.
But the Gods in the first half who manipulated Dido and Aeneas's relationship by kidnapping Aeneas's son and replacing him with Cupid were also arguing among themselves then making up and scheming so that when they virtually disappeared in the second half I was left wondering...'hang on a minute, what about... They never returned to view the fruits of their labours or even comment on the catastrophe.
It felt like chunks of the story had been chopped out and I admit I lost the plot. Dido's speeches became more hysterical, so much so that I was silently urging Aeneas to run like the wind and was quite relieved when she topped herself. And so was the rest of the audience who didn't applaud enough to encourage the actors back a second curtain call.
The production wasn't helped by technical problems with the curtains that ran across the back of the stage concealing bits of set. One of the Gods would gracefully walk by to elegantly undraw the curtain and reveal say a bed with Dido and Aenaes asleep only to find it sticking and no amount of subtle tugging would get it moving.
Then there was the noise of the back stage scene changes which disturbed the atmosphere of what was going on on the stage. There must have been problems we couldn't see during the interval because the second half was late starting, in fact the production finished 40 mins later than the estimated time in the programme.
I don't know how reflective of Marlow's writing the confused story is or whether chunks were removed as I haven't read the original.
It was preview week is the only concession I can give and maybe come opening night technical problems will have been ironed out, some performances pegged back (the Gods were far to pantomime) and some semblence of sense restored to the story.
No other reviews to share as it hasn't had it's press night yet.