The Odyssey
conceived by Bonnie Cullum
produced by Bonnie Cullum and Tess Cruz
the VORTEX, Austin, TX
October 2020
A socially-distant performance, audience members traveled in their cars through 11 scenes from The Odyssey. These urgent, unashamed performances view stories and characters from The Odyssey through an anti-racist, post-apocalyptic lens. We lift up the crucial themes of our shifting age: Black Lives Matter, Systemic Racism, Grand Uprising, Pandemic, and Climate Crisis. As we drive-thru the Manor Road IBIZ district, we might be captured and eaten by the sea monsters Scylla and Charybdis or the giant one-eyed Cyclops. With our family units/quarantine mates, we are the Voyagers, traveling from island to island on a journey with a puzzle component that will finally bring us home.
“This reinterpretation by The Vortex Theatre for the current times is an undeniably inimitable experience…”
SEA MONSTERS (stop 4 on the voyage)
directed by Tess Cruz
writer: Jeremy Rashad Brown
composer: Chad Salvata
scenic design: Ann Marie Gordon
lighting design: Patrick Anthony, Rachel Hess
cast: Tiffany Williams, Emily..
“Crashin’ waves may sound/no need for alarm/There is no wreckage /You will not be harmed.”
Jeremy Rashad Brown’s poem weaved a sinister seduction into Homer’s Scylla and Charybdis. In a world filled with diseases that leave people gasping for air, these sea monsters became manifestations of the swirling scariness of society’s obvious and lurking attempts to suffocate us. Tucked away in a corner of The VORTEX’s parking lot, stop 4 on the journey, the sea monster claim any in their grasp as a victim and reminds those that get away: “You feel you’re safe / But you’re nowhere near.”
ISLAND OF CALYPSO (stop 7 on the voyage)
directed by Tess Cruz
writer: Trey Deason
composer: Content Love Knowles
scenic design: Ann Marie Gordon
lighting design: Rachel Hess
cast: Laura, Blaise
“Frolic and frippery, excitement and mystery / So let's begin, sit back and settle in.”
The Island of Calypso, placed in a corner community garden on Chicon & 22nd street, found itself dripping with razzle, dazzle, and an ear-worm song to match. Calypso beckons voyagers into complacency; before they know it seven years have passed! Did you get her an anniversary gift? It is only through Hermes’ intervention that the song is interrupted and the travelers are released from the distraction of material goods and frivolity to continue searching for home.
