Unable to perform live performances in front actual audiences for the past fifteen months, the local, literary burlesque company Noveltease Theatre found a new way to bring their next performance to audiences: make a film instead of a stage production. Known for taking books from the page to the stage, here they are taking Homer’s The Odyssey from page to screen. Beginning at 8PM on Friday, May 21 and continuing through June 25, it can be streamed online with tickets available through ShowTix4U.
The show features performances by Onyx Asili, Fosse Jack, Sailor St. Claire, and Polly Wood, Lulu La Lune, Scarlett Folds, Willy Nilly, and Moscato Extatique. It was filmed at Theatre Off Jackson.
In their own words, Noveltease says, “Odysseus’s misadventures on his journey home to Ithaca have often been told only through the hero’s perspective. This production weaves together narrative perspectives from Odysseus, Penelope, and the goddess Athena as it adapts from the translation by Emily Wilson — the first woman to translate The Odyssey.” It is almost certainly the sexiest adaptation of The Odyssey in the poem’s 2,800 year history.
It’s innovating and the results are stunning:
To accomplish this, a three person directorial team was formed of choreographer Trixie Paprika, director Cheeky Diamondz, and photographic director Alyza DelPan-Monley. As DelPan-Monley told me via e-mail, “After a meeting with Trixie and (co-artistic director) Sailor St. Claire, we realized that the more typical roles for directing would not apply for this project, so we created a three-headed Director’s team – with Cheeky bringing the text to life, Trixie evoking the story through movement, and me focusing on the perspective and vision through the camera.”
But turning a burlesque performance into a movie isn’t an easy feat in normal circumstances, doubly or triply so in the middle of a global pandemic. This is how Trixie Paprika explained the months-long process of getting everyone in sync, “I created rehearsal videos for all of the acts and sent them to the dancers to learn on their own. We then went over details, character work, and practiced tricky sections over Zoom. The rehearsal videos for solos were pretty straightforward, but I had to keep creative for duets and group numbers. I ended up taking a video from the front and back of each dancer’s movements in a group number, and then I put them all together into an aggregate video so people could see how their part intersected with others.”
The directorial team also implemented several safety protocols to keep the cast and crew safe. Alyza DelPan-Monley said, “We rehearsed online throughout the entire rehearsal process. We had three in person rehearsals, outdoors in the park, where Trixie led the cast through a distanced version of the blocking and choreography, during which I was able to test a few of the shots. After we all got tested, we finally met in person for the 3 days of filming. The entire crew was masked and the cast was distanced except during the filming. We decided that it was best to operate at the level of caution that made people feel safe, and not push additional unnecessary risk.”
Trixie Paprika added, “The biggest challenge was the fact that for some of the dances, we’d never done with full physical contact until the day we were shooting. The cast was amazingly flexible and resilient, though, and rolled with all kinds of last minute adjustments.”
It wouldn’t be a Seattle production, though, with the obligatory uniquely Seattle complication, as Trixie Paprika said, “we did rehearse in the pouring rain (turning to hail) once, and that was miserable,” then adding, “But as we said, rehearsing “The Storm” from the Odyssey in a literal storm was some kind of method acting BS.”
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Noveltease’s The Odyssey is streaming via ShowTix4U from 8PM on Friday, May 21 through Friday, June 25. Tickets can be found here.
Photos courtesy of Noveltease Theatre.
