Dramaturgy According to Daedalus: the Odin Teatret Production of ‘Mythos’

This is not only the story of an actor whose character began as Clytemnestra and became Daedalus, but of how the slow and arduous discovery of that character helped to form and transform the Odin Teatret production of Mythos – a collage of characters and places, their relationships rooted not in cause and effect but in action and reaction – and of how that production itself emerged by following both actual and metaphysical threads through the Cretan labyrinth. The search takes the form of a funeral wake which is interrupted by the arrival of Oedipus, Cassandra, Daedalus, Odysseus, Medea, Orpheus, and Sisyphus, who introduce the last revolutionary of the twentieth century to the immortality of myth. The author, Julia Varley, who herself took the role of Daedalus, has been with Odin Teatret since 1976. The production of Mythos, based on poems by Henrik Norbrandt and directed by Eugenio Barba, is at present on tour, and expected to be presented at the Salisbury Festival in June 2001.