The Minotaur, an ageless symbol of our darkest fears, will take momentary residence in the dank corridors of historic Abbotsford Convent from February 6 to 10.
Labyrinth by Evan Lawson is part of the Midsumma Festival and Lawson is one of Australia’s most interesting music composers. He is also Hellenophile inspired by Greek myth and has now a body of work which pays homage and reinterprets ancient Greek myth such as, Orpheus, and Calypso.
“It started, as it does for so many kids at school,” says Lawson to Neos Kosmos.
“Like those at primary school when you get pamphlets with your book, and you can order your $10 book or whatever.
“I remember getting myths of ancient Greece, a little paperback thing with crappy old pages that told the stories, with all the classic stories, the Trojan War stuff and all that. It was captivating.”
Ariadne’s thread is Lawson’s music, which leads audiences through the psychic musicalchoreogaphy, the Labyrinth. Mesmeric and dark sounds will greet audiences as they search for the Minotaur personified by the piano.
“The work goes across multiple rooms; singers play characters who tell audiences things about what they’re doing, and there’ll be dancers. But the piano is the monster, the Minotaur,” Lawson tells Neos Kosmos.
Lawson, the director of the interdisciplinary company Forest Collective, makes Abbotsford Convent into his Labyrinth.
The performance will be in a “rambling room”, and audiences will be confronted by “sounds of moaning” which add to the journey in the labyrinth “and eventually you’ll be confronted with this what will hopefully be quite like full-on piano music”.
The moaning represents the tribute imposed by Minos of Crete of seven virgin young men and seven virgin young women who were sent from Athens to be devoured by the Minotaur.
King Minos of Crete, in the myth, prayed to Poseidon, the god of the sea, who sent him a snow-white bull to sacrifice. Minos instead kept the bull for its beauty.
Hence, as a reprisal, Poseidon made Minos’s wife, Pasiphaë, fall in love with the bull, and she had sex with the beast, giving birth to the Minotaur. Minos commissioned Daedalus to construct a labyrinth near his palace in Knossos to contain the monstrous offspring, following guidance from the oracle at Delphi.
Theseus, the Athenian hero, ultimately defeated the Minotaur with the help of Ariadne, King Minos’ daughter, Ariadne who provided him with a ball of thread to help him find his way out of the Labyrinth after slaying the beast.
“It’s visceral, and Greek gods have ambiguous moral positions. Theseus, a Greek hero, kills the Minotaur with Ariadne’s help; then he betrays her. After promising marriage, Ariadne is deserted, abandoned, and on an island.
“The Minotaur, a child of a transgressive union, hidden away in the labyrinth, then there is the absolute horror of feeding the beast with human sacrifices,” says Lawson.
The libretto by Daniel Szesiong Todd is visceral yet lyrical and infuses the production with a sense of desperate humanity. Dougan captures the essence of the characters’ inner turmoil, drawing audiences deeper into the narrative.
The Minotaur, in modern psychology, embodies our primal fears and desires concealed within the labyrinthine alcoves of our subconscious.
It serves as a potent symbol of the intricate tapestry of human nature, blending primal instincts with lofty aspirations akin to those of gods.
The Minotaur is a menacing harbinger of mortality; it is the inevitability of death and our existential anxieties. For ancient Greeks and across literature, its symbolic presence underscores the imperative of acknowledging and grappling with our primal fears while embracing the complexity inherent within us.
Lawson, as a queer composer, touches on the “complexity of sexuality” he pays homage to pre-Christian Greeks and their myths, “their ability to embrace sexuality and transgressive behaviour is expressed in their myths, gods and behaviour of humans.”
“The exciting thing in this piece, and all my mythical work, is that we have goddesses abstracted as instruments,” says Lawson to Neos Kosmos.
The piano concerto is at the heart of the performance, brought to life by Melbourne pianist Danaë Killian. With each resounding note, Killian’s virtuosity lends a powerful voice to the landscape of the piece, adding depth and intensity to the unfolding drama.
As the audience navigates the twists and turns of the Labyrinth, they are confronted with the universal truths embedded within the myth – the complexities of human nature, the struggle for identity, and the quest for redemption.
“The Labyrinth and all Greek myths resonate with the modern identity, one cannot ignore them, they are all embedded in our psyche,” says Lawson.
In Lawson’s Labyrinth, Theseus, Ariadne, and the Minotaur await, their fates intertwined in a choreography of sex, life and death.
When: Tuesday February 6 to 10 – Audio described performance and Tactile Tour available prior
Where: The Store, Abbotsford Convent