Liz Kemp, John Jamison II, and George Keller Photo by Tom Wallace

As always, the company performs with barely a trace of scenery and all the lights on, in a tiny square surrounded by audience members on four sides–the better to pack up and bring their shows to prisons, shelters for the unhoused, adult learning centers, halfway houses, and other sites serving populations that rarely, if ever, experience the joy and immediacy of live theatre.

In the case of Helen, those simple trappings are deeply enriched by Marcela Lorca's fluid direction and use of movement. Helen is Lorca's swan song with the company after serving for six years as its artistic director. She draws out both the angst and the humor that run through the play, and my guess is that she found humor where it would not have been obvious to a casual observer, and perhaps was not the intent of the playwright. Most of the classic Greek plays fall into one of two camps: tragedy or comedy. Helen is one of the small number that is categorized as a romantic drama, but it certainly is rife with opportunities to unleash humor as well.

The comedy comes through in the characterizations, particularly of the two leads, which make them relatable to a contemporary audience, in spite of the mythological context of their tale. Lorca's work is further enhanced by the contributions of composer and music director J.D. Steele, setting some of the choral pieces to music, which adds a spirited sense of play to the proceedings. Though not a musical, music plays an essential part in the overall feel and accessibility of this production.

Helen of Troy's beauty is usually named as the cause of the bloody Trojan War between Greece and Troy. Most who study Greek myths and legends land on one of two scenarios about Helen's role. Considered the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen was either a) abducted from Sparta to Troy by the Trojan leader, Paris, and against her will forced to become his bed-mate, with Sparta going to war against the Trojans to rescue Helen; or b) Helen ran off with Paris willingly, with Sparta going to war to both retrieve and punish Helen. In either case, Helen has dishonored her husband, Menelaus, whether by her own choice or not, and so was thought of as a wicked woman. Such were the times.

Some among those in Euripides' day (fifth century B.C.) who studied the legends suggested a third possibility for Helen's role in the Trojan War, and Euripides takes up this third approach: that Hera and Athena conspire against Paris for choosing Aphrodite over them as most beautiful of the goddesses. Hera creates an eidolon of Helen–that is, a spirit representation that in every way resembles the real thing–and that is what accompanies Paris back to Troy. Hera has the real Helen sent to Egypt to wait out her supposed abduction and the ensuing war in safety, and without betraying her husband.

The play begins with Helen (George Keller) who is in her seventeenth year of waiting in Egypt. She has remained in a sacred burial vault, there to avoid the unwelcome advances of the new Egyptian king, Theoclymenus (Bradley Greenwald). Because Helen, a Greek woman, has spurned him, Theoclymenus makes it a practice to slaughter all other Greeks found in Egypt. When, as fate would have it, the ship bearing Helen's victorious husband, Menelaus (Bill McCallum), is cast off course during its return to Greece by a tempest, Helen is thrilled to find her husband alive and be reunited with him, but fearful of his certain death at Theoclymenus's hands. Husband and wife–mostly wife, for Helen comes across as possessing the greater wit–hatch a plot to escape the Egyptian king's wrath, with the aide of the king's sister, Theonoe (Lynnea Doublette).

All of the performers are marvelous, with Keller particularly superb expressing a cocktail of feelings: angry to be subjected to seventeen years of exile and solitude when she has done nothing wrong, pining for the touch of her husband, fearful over his fate, cynical about the god's intrusions into human affairs, disgust over the Egyptian king's expectation that she succumb to him, and just plain whiny about the state of her life. Keller projects Helen's intelligence, but also a sense of her down-to-earth nature, far from her origins as a child of the union of Zeus (disguised as a swan) and Leda. She also believably summons Helen's demand to reclaim her dignity, to restore her good name among her country-folk who have written her off as a harlot.

McCallum's appearance as Menelaus matches Keller well, conveying a confident heroic dude–with a strong shade of "bro" in his demeanor–certain of his enduring ladies-man appeal, while grumbling at such indignities as being deceived by conspiring goddesses. Greenwald is marvelously pompous and unyielding as the Egyptian king. His entrances are staged with great comedic pageantry, complete with the monarch blowing his own horn–literally. Doublette expresses dignity as Theonoe, judicious in the use of powers she possesses that can alter the outcomes of mortal lives. The five other cast members–Dominic Schiro, Isabella Dawis, John Jamison II, Liv Kemp, and Michael Wolfe–serve admirably in less defined roles as messengers and officers. The entire cast acts as the chorus to bridge gaps in the narrative and illuminate it with incisive, often musical commentary. Kemp is especially moving as a messenger who, in learning that all along Helen was in Egypt, her virtue intact, despairs over the horrific number of lives lost on both sides for what was the mere illusion of a noble cause.

With little in the way of scenery and absolutely no stage lighting, Sonya Berlovitz's inventive costumes carry the load of visually establishing a sense of the mythic world in which Helen plays out, while also defining characters with a tongue-in-cheek attitude. Throughout the play, images and sounds of birds in flight convey the boundary-less existence of creatures not weighed down by kings and wars.

The play, which runs ninety minutes without intermission, delivers an engrossing narrative that heartily entertains, infusing Euripides' "romantic drama" with wit and verve, while subtly raising questions such as just what does constitute a cause worth fighting for, and how often might we be deceived in staking a claim to the morally correct position in a fight?

Ten Thousand Things is rare among theatre companies in frequently staging classic Greek plays, with productions that reveal a relevance that reaches across millenniums. If you have admired Marcela Lorca's work with Ten Thousand Things these past six years, you certainly won't want to miss this, her parting artistic gift. Still, the best reason to see Helen is that its top-drawer stage craft delivers tremendous fun.

Helen runs October 17, 2024 - October 26, 2024 at the Capri Theater, 2027 W. Broadway Ave., Minneapolis MN; October 27, 2024 at the Open Book, 1011 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis MN; October 31, 2024 - November 10, 2024, Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church, 511 Groveland Avenue, Minneapolis MN. All remaining community-based performances are sold out. For tickets and information, please call 612-203-9502 or visit www.tenthousandthings.org.

Playwright: John Barton and Kenneth Cavander, based on the play by Euripides; Director: Marcela Lorca; Composer and Music Director: J.D. Steele; Costume Design: Sonya Berlovitz; Scenic & Props Design: Joel Sass; Dramaturg: Jo Holcomb; Assistant Director: Alex Galick; Costume Design Assistant: Bronson Talcott; Stage Manager: Maya Vagle; Production Manager: Ryan Volna-Rich; Acting Production Manager: Anna Schloerb.

Cast: Isabella Dawis (Eucleia/chorus/musician), Lynnea Doublette (Theonoe/chorus), Bradley Greenwald (King Theoclymenus/chorus), John Jamison II (Soldier/chorus), George Keller (Helen/chorus), Liv Kemp (Messenger/chorus), Bill McCallum (Menelaus/musician), Dominic Schiro (Teukros/chorus), Michael Wolfe (chorus).