Iphigenia and the Furies (On Taurian Land):
sacrificing tragedy on the altar of comedy
13 Jan 2019

by Drew Rowsome - Photos by Dahlia Katz

Human sacrifice! Matricide! Fratricide! Vengeful gods! Forbidden love! War! Lust! Idolatry! Adultery! And last but not least, in the case of Iphigenia and the Furies (On Taurian Land): Comedy!

The industrious playwright/actor Ho Ka Kai/Jeff Ho (Box 4901, trace, Prince Hamlet) takes great joy in subverting expectations. Iphigenia and the Furies begins with an eerie set evoking a ruined temple with some new agey art added, swathed in smoke and drenched in portentous electronic ambient sound. The audience is primed for serious art, a Greek tragedy updated or analysed or vivisected for our intellectual delectation. Enter Virgilia Griffith (Harlem Duet, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, The Wedding Party, They Say He Fell) in full regal mode, every inch the princess she announces herself to be, intoning in hypnotic but forceful phrases, her tragic story.

And then Ho inserts a clever comic anachronism that Griffith bites down on with deadpan elan. And Iphigenia and the Furies becomes a hilarious excursion into not only the pomposity of Greek tragedy, but also the consequences of colonialism, religion, homophobia and race-baiting. Griffith delivers the complicated back story - a crash course in the pertinent mythological characters and milieu - with the ease of a mesmerizing lecturer while simultaneously keeping the laughter flowing. It is a high wire act that she makes look not only easy but utterly natural. 

That tonal quality would be a feat to maintain and Iphigenia and the Furies escalates into farce and scathing satire with the entrance of Augusto Bitter (The Monument, Lear) and Thomas Olajide (Black Boys) as a lusty Laurel and Hardy-esque duo. Hi-jinks and high drama ensue, all overseen and in conflict with PJ Prudat as the sole Chorus in the chorus. The anachronistic riffs could perhaps have been used more sparingly, but when they are fine tuned - Bitter compares tainted blood curses to gay blood donation, Griffith rails against the gods as tools of human "bloodthirsty rodents" - they hit home with power. And any jarring tonal shifts are forgiven in exchange for the sight of Bitter and Olajide simulating oral sex and rolling around clad only in briefs.

That the gay couple offer the one sincere emotional bond is refreshing and telling, but Ho is also questioning the very nature of storytelling and mythology. Particularly in who gets to tell the dominant narratives. Why have the Greek myths survived while others have disappeared or have been disappeared? The relevancy of Iphigenia's story, a morally dubious parable about privilege, is examined, lampooned and on occasion given a shoutout. Ho and the cast are wrestling with these questions as much as the audience is requested to.

And the cast appears to be as entertained as the audience is. There is much physical slapstick and a few devastating one-liners (Griffith and Bitter get the biggest laughs with deadpan twists of colloquial phrases) and the cast deserves the occasional smile of satisfaction when a joke or a point lands with precision and force. For the most part the caper plotline - steal the statue and avoid slitting the throat of your sibling - is just a thread to hang the ideas and gags on. Director Jonathan Seinen (Black Boys) is not quite able to channel the exuberance into a balanced production, but the playfulness, the verve, the spoofiness, and the defiance of the rigidity of classical theatre gives a potent and very queer energy to Iphigenia and the Furies. 

The bitter icy tones that Griffith uses to denounce the "names we use to deny people their humanity" is cutting and a powerful comment slid in with the kiss of a subtle scalpel. Purdat leers enthusiastically about sacrificing "two hunky Greek homos" to particularly appease the gods. The two extremes never quite gel enough to make the emotional ending attempt work, but by then we have been so royally amused and our socially conscience poked provocatively, that Iphigenia and the Furies makes its point and earns its place in the pantheon.