PENELOPE, O PENELOPE is a modern chamber tragicomedy inspired by Homer's Odyssey. In this new translation by Artistic Director Melissa Lorraine, Dinah awaits her husband's return from war after twenty years, with a vengeful suitor hungry at her door. Elias—the war-riddled, hero-turned-vagabond—searches for redemption from his bloodshed and a way home from spirits and memories alike.
It is our distinct privilege to discover overlooked masterpieces in global contemporary theater and bring them to Chicago. Theatre Y relies on international collaboration to strip all peripheral concerns, all colloquial distractions, and gather around only the most universal of fires.
Simon Abkarian is the proper vessel for a universal text--tri-lingual (Armenian/French/English), bullied by a cacophony of world events, nomadic, and literarily fearless. With an Odyssey of his own, thanks to Lebanon's civil war in the 70's, Abkarian offers a very lucid grip on the myriad of paradoxes that force us into what is a timeless human cycle.
Directed by critically acclaimed Romanian director Éva Patkó, with dramaturgy by famed author Zsolt Láng, PENELOPE, O PENELOPE employs shadow, dance, language and architecture to ask how long love lasts...and at what cost.
