“Here, the World Entire” by Anwen Kya Hayward
Nottingham New Theatre.

Adapted by Sam Osborne, “Here, The World Entire” is a retelling of the Perseus myth, the part where he's tasked with retrieving Medusa's head. It's told from Medusa's perspective.

Medusa had a life before she became the snake-headed woman of legend, so ugly she turned men to stone. At least, in many versions of the myth, she does. The God, Poseidon, had taken an interest in her and she was betrayed by her Goddess because of this and cursed with turning people who lay eyes on her to stone.

Medusa self-exiled herself because she can't stand turning people to stone. She warns people away, begs them not to look at her, and is heartbroken when they succumb to her curse. Medusa is no monster, bent on revenge against all men for what one God did to her. She's a human, cursed by the Goddess who was supposed to protect her.

Perseus arrives and despite her trying to make him leave, he stays, and throughout these days that he is with Medusa, he discovers what had led up to her exile.

Medusa then has to make a choice as to whether she stays safe in her cave or leave to help Perseus. One question though; why is Perseus so adamant to stay, and what does he really want?

The story is brilliant and I really want to read the book now that I have seen the play.

Sam and the cast and crew put this together in just two weeks, and I feel that with just another week, this play would have had even more of an effect than it did.

The script is lengthy and Laura Wolczyk who played Medusa had the majority of the lines, Even a professional actor, I feel may have had problems remembering the swathes of script she had to recall in the two weeks given.

I could see in her eyes that she may have felt a bit disappointed, maybe angry even, but she has no need to reproach herself because those inner feelings may just have worked in her favour with the character and made her performance an emotional one.

Rohan Rakhit played Persues. To create that feeling of him being outside the cave, he was in silhouette behind one of the canvas sails. This meant that his acting was through his vocal talents alone, which is not as easy as it sounds.

This also meant that you were putting yourself in Medusa's shoes because we were hearing what Medusa heard, not seeing Perseus meant you took what was said by him at face value. Nothing else was given away by Rohan.

I totally get why Sam set this play outside because Medusa's home is in a cave. Caves are cold places where the wind whistles through. Setting this externally made you experience what Medusa was going through, and also with Perseus' determination to hang around for Medusa, you could feel that he was there for something, and he was not going to leave without what he came for.

This is Sam's Directorial debut, and Skylar Hurd's debut as a producer, and they did a really good job. The play was not rushed and the story rolled out in such a way that you were learning everything from Medusa's view point, so different from Perseus' image and the historical accounts.

Lighting for this external performance was designed by Nathan Penney.

This play is really worth a viewing and these actors tell the story well. Just make sure that you wrap up really well; it's cold in that there cave on Djanogly Boulevard!

“Here, the World Entire” is on at the Nottingham New Theatre until Tuesday 12 March 2019