‘Penelope’ @ Stage West
Photos by Evan Michael Woods
—Jan Farrington
Patient Penelope
Loyal Penelope
Virtuous Penelope
Faithful Penelope
Nuts to that.
And besides, it never was the whole truth about her. Even when centuries of literary history assigned those adjectives to Odysseus’ wife—She Who Waited For Him to return from the Trojan War for 20 years (gurl?)—we only had to listen between Homer’s lines to find a much more interesting woman.
At Stage West, the musical Penelope gives That Woman back to us, with spotlights and music and a killer little black dress that transforms singer/actress Cara Statham Serber into a darkly shimmering Greek column. (Costume by Sarah Mosher.) She’s backed by five fine musicians who accompany her for this 75-minute piece, almost entirely sung-through; really, it’s a solo cabaret-style chamber opera—if operas are allowed folk, jazz, country, R&B, and other such interludes.
Wandering among the small tables clustered up front, Serber draws the light, and our attention, to whatever she’s doing: arms curving up as she prays to the goddess Athena; hands cupping her husband’s face as she imagines their meeting again; bending an elbow to slug down a drink as she tries to explain the history of the war (“Drunk Iliad”).
Alex Bechtel wrote the music and lyrics for Penelope, which premiered at Hudson Valley Shakespeare in 2023, and co-wrote the book with Grace McLean and Eva Steinmetz. This is the show’s regional premiere—directed by Sarah Gay with musical direction by Cody Dry. And they both, clearly, have paid attention to every vibrant, dramatic, cheeky detail.
Serber has a natural affinity for the cabaret style, easily switching moods from one song to another, engaged with the audience on one, caught up in memory and dreaming for others. Between Penelope’s “numbers” the Band keeps music flowing seamlessly: Bechtel has written “themes” of sorts that repeat and connect—”A Very Long Wait,” “Sunset,” “Rain.” But it’s Serber’s rich and flexible voice, taking us on Penelope’s long journey, that holds center stage wherever she walks in the theater, and whenever she takes up a song.
One thing we’re sure of: Penelope is fed up, at the end of her rope, and just about to “Lose My Mind.” She was a girl with a newborn baby when Odysseus left for Troy. Now she’s a mature and lonely woman, noting fiercely that most everyone else’s husband is home—and came home years ago, in fact, when the Trojan War ended.
She’d like to know (if Odysseus is even alive) just where he is, and why he took the scenic route.
If he comes home, he won’t find the same girl. Homer gives us hints that their marriage was already—a rarity in ancient Greek lit—a union of two clever and ingenious people, and Penelope’s been learning, changing, growing all these years. There are new ideas in her head.
“What if…?” she says repeatedly, she prayed less (“Tired of Faith”) and did more—like find a ship and set sail on her own search for Odysseus…and self-discovery? What if…she truly claimed the power she’s developed by raising a son on her own, running the city of Ithaca in Odysseus’ absence, and fending off the daily wink-winks of a crowd of suitors who hang out in her “great room” in hopes of climbing into her bed? The story of her day-to-day (boy, are they dumb) “Weaving” trick is literally a classic.
In one of the show’s funniest sequences, Penelope stops praying and starts asking hard questions of Pallas Athena, Odysseus’ prime supporter among the Olympian gods. Athena (her voice manifests in a surprising way) is fine with spilling the tea about their son Telemachus (yes, he’s safe, etc.), but when Penelope asks “And my husband?” there’s silence—except for Athena’s annoying habit of referring to Odysseus with increasingly lusty descriptors. (She’s been crushing on him forever). Penelope isn’t amused.
Cody Dry’s music group (“The Band”) includes himself in a perfectly calibrated performance on piano; just hear how he handles the series of stylistic shifts. There are fine percussion effects from Wes Griffin, and great work on strings by Catherine Beck (viola), Bethany Hardwick (violin), and Molly Wang (cello).
Bryan Stevenson’s lighting design is another star turn. He creates shifting moods for the stage’s night-clubby feel, adjusts light levels in the cabaret to bring Penelope closer to us, more human—and he uses spotlights and shadows to direct mesmerizing focus on Serber’s every move. David Lanza’s sound is impeccable, both in keeping music and vocalist in balance, and in providing effects—a whiz-bang intro for a goddess, the soothing sounds of sea and rain—that expand the universe of the story.
Most of us know how the Penelope-Odysseus story turns out—at least on the surface. And there’s no doubt, from Serber’s tender and exasperated performance, how much she loves and longs for her absent husband. But will she ever get the chance to set off on her own adventure? There ought to be a way, when he’s back in the marriage bed he built for them (“By the Fire” or after the “Night”), that Penelope can show him who she’s become…and they can talk about bigger “What ifs…” than he ever imagined?
She loves him enough for that.
WHEN: March 13-30, 2025
WHERE: Stage West, 821 W. Vickery Blvd., Fort Worth
WEB: stagewest.org
