Helen: a classic play with a modern message

Frank McGuinness’ modern revamp of Euripides’ Helen premiered at the Globe on Sunday 2 August.

Set in the aftermath of the Trojan War when Helen, the woman for whom all of Greece went to war, reveals that she has been hiding in Egypt while a phantom Helen lies in Paris’ bed, the play has struck a timely chord with its bold and humorous portrayal of a war fought over nothing.

Reviewers have been particularly complimentary about the play’s lead actors, Penny Downie (Helen) and Paul McGann (Menelaus). Writing for the Daily Telegraph, Charles Spencer calls Helen “one of the most topical and engaging plays on the London stage... Downie brings a delicious mixture of sexuality, glamour and wit to the stage, while also movingly suggesting a woman who remains deeply in love with her husband”. He goes on to praise “an outstanding performance from Paul McGann, who beautifully captures the wonder of a battered old cuckold unexpectedly recovering both his love and his dignity”.

Reviewing for The Times, Benedict Nightingale calls Downie “a fine, fiery Helen with the hair of a Pre-Raphaelite beauty, moves from suicidal self-hatred to joy when she’s suddenly confronted with Paul McGann’s bold, tough Menelaus”. Henry Hitchings from the Evening Standard writes, ”the actors have fun with it. As Helen, Penny Downie moves nicely from conspiratorial allure to flailing eroticism, and Paul McGann’s Menelaus has an engaging directness”.

Originally written by Euripides around 412 BC, this new version by renowned playwright Frank McGuinness is the Globe’s first excursion into full-scale Greek drama.

Dominic Dromgoole, Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe says, “It’s the first time we’ve done any Greek drama at the Globe, which I’ve always wanted to do because there are similarities; it’s open and it’s public and it’s declamatory in the way the Globe is. There’s something about the tickle of humour, a laughter that lives in the air, that helps the Globe work, but is absent in many Greek plays. However in Helen it’s there. It does have a happy ending and has a lot of anarchic and very wild and funny writing in it”.

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