‘Remythed’ is a fun, atmospheric piece of theatre, celebrating queer joy by re-telling old stories from a different perspective.
Live Theatre in Newcastle isn’t a venue I had ever been to before, but I would certainly go again. With a cosy yet modern feel, it really lends itself to contemporary shows, whilst also having a timeless feel. I was sat in the cabaret seats of the small auditorium, with a table and the option to be very close to the stage.
‘Remythed’ opened, and the five cast members immediately put the audience at ease with a few jokes and introductions. From there they each transformed into characters from myths, legends and stories, and began to tell them as we’d never heard them before. Many stories, as they were passed down, have been whitewashed or stripped of any queerness. However, since society now largely accepts that queer people always have and always will exist, it makes sense that many of these stories probably involved more of them than we have been led to believe. Especially since some of the stories don’t quite make sense under scrutiny…
Amongst many others, they told the story of Adam’s first wife, Lilith, rejecting him. Another was about Lady Godiva’s unhappy marriage to a man, and her finding love with another woman. I didn’t recognise most of the stories, so I think I would have followed it slightly better if I knew the ‘original’ versions, but the whole show was powerful, and seamlessly choreographed and executed.
I was captivated by the acting. Each cast member played multiple different roles of different genders and from different legends, and each one was clearly discernible from the last. There were bags of energy and drama, with lots of physicality and playfulness filling the room. Despite the set being extremely minimal, it somehow still felt like every different scene was perfectly portrayed, and the show was extremely slick apart from one part when the sound dropped out. As the energy of the show felt spontaneous anyway, it barely affected anything.
I would have liked a little more familiarisation of the stories as they are widely told before seeing the re-telling, but perhaps that says more about my lack of general mythical knowledge. I can imagine for queer people watching this, it feels very validating to see the stories as they likely were, and the celebration of queerness always having existed. It was both eye-opening and funny, with an enchanting spirit.