The Labyrinth Series (2008-2010)
The Minotaur, half-man half-bull, lives captive in the Labyrinth, designed by Daedalus to be so complex that nobody can find their way out. Every seven years, seven youths and seven maidens are sent from Athens across the sea to the island of Crete to be let loose inside the labyrinth, a war. Theseus, lost prince of Athens, sets out to put an end the curse and is saved by Ariadne, daughter of King Minos of Crete, by giving him a silken thread that will lead him back from the Minotaur’s lair.
Whichever way you try to untangle the tales, there are more questions and turns. Romance, tragedy, comedy, epic? We couldn’t decide, so we presented the story in episodic form, with a completely different version each week for four weeks running. It was a marathon!
Episodus 1 - The Silken Thread, a Romance
Episodus 2 - The Black Sail, a Tragedy
Episodus 3 - “How my wife betrayed me for a bull, and gave birth to a hideous monster that I had to imprison in a maze built by the “genius” Daedalus, who if I get my hands on I’ll pull his tongue through his eyeball for helping my daughter run off with an Athenian twigtosser”, a Comedy
Episodus 4 - Getting out the Vote, a Community epic.
We were invited to devise more versions of the story, in different communities: Saltspring Labyrinth, The Minotaur Dreams, Humber College Labyrinth
Poster Design by: Molly March
Multiple versions of “Theseus and the Minotaur”, a myth from Ancient Greece.
The four initial versions were set site-specifically at Curly Willow Farm, Grindrod B.C.in 2009.
Saltspring Labyrinth in Saltspring Island was devised with community participants through Graffiti Theatre (2009) and performed outdoors.
The Minotaur Dreams in the Downtown Eastside / Strathcona area of Vancouver was a co- production with Vancouver Moving Theatre, involving many local residents with our core team.
At Humber College in Mississauga, Ontario we worked for a week with 120 theatre students and created 3 more versions: a Romance, a Tragedy, and a Comedy.
Directed by Varrick Grimes;
Core artists: Peter Hall, Thomas Jones, Molly March, Jaci Metivier, Julie Ross, Sarah May Redmond, Cathy Stubington,
Musicians (Grindrod): Murray MacDonald and Jean Brighouse
Stage Manager (Grindrod and Saltspring): Dalynn Kearney
Enderby Labyrinth
Saltspring Labyrinth
Downtown Eastside Vancouver Labyrinth
Scratch the surface of this ancient myth and you find a rich vein of emotion: mortals are manipulated and seduced by gods then forced to deal with the consequences of their actions.
Artistic Process
In the spring of 2008 we held an exploratory workshop with a group of artists at Curly Willow Farm, towards a production of the Greek Myth “Theseus and the Minotaur”. So many ideas came forth, but we couldn’t decide whether the story was a romance, a tragedy, a comedy, or an epic. Instead of deciding, the following year we presented the story in episodic form, with a completely different version each week for four weeks running. It was a marathon!
The Labyrinth was an experiment with process as well as with form and genre, discovered anew for each version. The team included designers and actor/puppeteers creating together and crossing over roles. In the initial creative development workshop, we devised a method for scene creation in which there were a list of parameters and set elements to be included in each scene. These stimulated rapid creativity and systematic invention.
In advance of the process, Cathy made portraits of six main characters: Theseus, the Minotaur, King Minos of Crete, Queen Pasiphae, Ariadne, and King Aegeus of Athens. These existed in three scales: two different puppet scales, and mask. Thus the three scales, and combinations thereof, were available for each part of the story, providing additional expression for the interpretations. Other puppets and props were made as needed for each version.
In each episode and in each community residency, participants took part in a devising workshop, to discover how they responded to the metaphors and characters of the Labyrinth: the Minotaur, Daedalus, the seven youths and maidens sacrificed to the Minotaur, Ariadne’s thread, and Theseus the hero. The same Runaway Moon set of masks and puppets were incorporated. A new version of the Minotaur, of the Labyrinth, and of the 14 Youths and Maidens, were made in community, totally different each time.
This creative devising system is transferable to other artistic projects. We worked through a similar process at High School on Saltspring Island, with the myth of Orpheus and Euridice.