I have just seen Cyclops: A Satyr Play, Produced by Panic Theatre in association with Talk is Free Theatre, Written, Directed and Performed by Griffin Hewitt, with Original Music by Juliette Jones.

If I said it’s Euripides’ only surviving Satyr Play you might sigh and get the wrong idea.

If I told you it’s a musical full of profane double entendres & lots of fun audience participation (no pressure) you’d probably have a better idea of what the show is like, even if you’d never connect it with classical theatre.

I can’t help it, Timothee Chalamet’s words are lurking in the back of my mind.

He said “no one cares about this anymore,” speaking of art forms he thought were dying, resenting the implicit call he heard in his head (or from his family) of ‘Hey, keep this thing alive.’ While he may have been thinking of ballet & opera, it could apply to any art form that’s precarious or esoteric, the ones with a smaller audience base than his popular films such as Little Women or the Dune franchise.

Maybe the best pathway is to relax and have fun. I have been having similar thoughts after seeing the Metropolitan Opera Tristan und Isolde in the Cineplex, or the St Matthew Passion presented by Toronto Mendelssohn Choir: that the tight-assed purist kills art for everyone. “Lighten up” is sometimes a mantra I say to myself, trying not to take things too seriously, but it might be the best advice artists can follow.

After Cyclops ended I came out of the theatre unexpectedly thinking of John Milton’s famous line “justify the ways of God to men” from the beginning of his epic poem, Paradise Lost. Excuse me if that sounds pretentious, but it comes to mind because the highest aims of artists is a kind of communication, to channel the divine, but in ways that persuade. If one keeps speaking Miltonic language everyone but the purists will fall asleep.

Whatever else we might say about Cyclops I feel it is an attempt to make Euripides popular, accessible, fun, inclusive. The only people who might have a problem with it (recalling the conversation about Wagner) are the people who think that they are experts in Euripides and classical theatre, the people who might say “you can’t do that!” I think worrying about that sort of response is a waste of time given that there are always a few people who are hard to please.

Maybe there was no conscious attempt to try to save classical culture. And I won’t argue with Timothee whether anyone cares. But it seems their (Griffin & Juliette) voyage of discovery was aided if not inspired by refusing to let anything hold them back, treating the material as inspiration, and then using this wacky tale of dionysian revelry & crazy mythology as an excuse to run wild. They seemed to enter into the spirit of the text, a satyr play that embraces everything about the word satyr, including goats, animal impulses, jokes, dance, music, song, terror, long phallic objects pressed into service in the story-telling, refusing to be held back by the alleged seriousness of the project. And I am sure I have left a few things out of that list.

Is it serious? the core of the story is a combination of mythology, filled with all the blood & gore of a horror movie, as the Cyclops dismembers & eats Greek sailors he has captured, leading to a rescue through drunkenness and hints of lots more violence. The story-telling pops back and forth between the story and a reflective meta-space induced by drunken revelry, distanced as he tries to get his head together & his story straight. We walked into a theatre space at the corner of Bathurst & Dupont, aka the B Street Hub with our protagonist lying unconscious on the floor before us.

And speaking of the normal procedures of classical Greek tragedy the violence was all offstage. Have no fear no one was killed or injured before our eyes. It’s funny considering that this modern piece of theatre is a million miles away from orthodoxy.

It does raise a few fun questions. Can a dildo poke someone’s eye out?

In the tiny space Griffin’s performance is as flamboyant as a private visit with a rock star, in your face but maybe more musical than what that might imply. Griffin has a great voice that he uses to great effect, the levels set really well for the tiny space, speaking as someone who used to put ear-plugs in my ears to protect myself when going to loud concerts (the first time was at the suggestion of the Globe’s rock critic back in the 1980s, as we were in the washroom together discussing the concert, and I asked him how he avoided going deaf). These levels are close to perfect.

He really does have a beautiful sound to his voice, the songs rarely pushing him to rave although near the end there’s one that takes him way up in his range. The part of me responding intellectually to the original show is a different part of my brain from the part of me that responds to a great voice. Or is that my viscera? Seriously this is really great singing, a series of great songs, and terrific writing.

That being said, at times I thought I was watching stand-up comedy, as Griffin seemed to be riffing off the audience and what we were doing. He responded to a couple of things I said, incorporating them effortlessly into his show.

I found myself wondering if there’s a soundtrack recording coming. And I wonder if a longer version of the show is being conceived, given that Fringe shows sometimes are the baby version of something bigger & more elaborate. This one comes in at a breathless hour. If it went longer I’d want someone to help Griffin as he’d exhaust himself, and maybe damage his voice if he keeps screaming out these amazing tunes. The fun started today, a run that goes until April 4th. As a one-man show it’s about right at one hour, perfect for a Fringe Festival. It was in Adelaide Australia’s Fringe February 24th until March 22nd, but the voice sounds fresh.

I would love to know what kinds of conversation went into the collaboration between Griffin Hewitt and Juliette Jones, and what their future plans are, whether in the expansion or revival of this work, or in anything else. Their work is impressive.

Forgive me that I am not hitting you with my knowledge of Euripides or Greek drama. Nope. That’s as irrelevant as opera or ballet, although Griffin does really know how to sing. And he does dance a bit too.

For more information or tickets click here.