{"id":437603,"date":"2026-08-19T20:18:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T20:18:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/437603\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T20:18:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T20:18:22","slug":"review-shotgun-players-stage-new-take-on-mythology-in-iphigenia-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/437603\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Shotgun Players stage new take on mythology in ‘Iphigenia’"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re a student of Greek mythology<\/a>, you may have trouble drawing one-to-one parallels with the title character of \u201cIphigenia in Splott,\u201d<\/a> running through Aug. 29 at the Ashby Stage<\/a> in Berkeley.<\/p>\n

As written by Gary Owen, the eponymous Iphigenia\/\u201cEffie\u201d (Alicia Mason) bares little resemblance to the Trojan War\u2019s mild-mannered sacrificial lamb. Then again, should one need a more devout adaptation, San Francisco\u2019s Z Space will be staging one in October. Until then, there\u2019s this.<\/p>\n

Effie\u2019s spent her whole life in the Welsh hamlet of Splott, a place less likely to inspire images of lust vistas so much as a war-torn village without the war. Her grandmother remembers when the community was thriving, but Effie\u2019s gotten used to the urban squalor. She lives in a local flat with best-mate Leanne, and has a boyfriend named Kev. Theirs is a never-ending cycle of liquor, sex, drugs, and partying.<\/p>\n

We meet Effie just before she, Kev, and Leanne go clubbing for the night. It\u2019s a wild one, just like the ones that came before, until Effie locks eyes with a guy on the dance floor. He\u2019s cute enough that Effie ditches Kev and Leanne to have a one-nighter with this disabled veteran whom she\u2019s never seen before. What results isn\u2019t simply a night of passion, it\u2019s a life-changing experience for the Splott girl. It\u2019s enough to make her want to reevaluate her entire existence, because for the first time ever, she imagines her own life story with a happy ending.<\/p>\n

But her story doesn\u2019t end there. This is where things truly begin. What happens next finds Effie caught in a perfect storm of toxic masculinity, bureaucratic red tape, and result of living through a broken system where the \u201ccracks\u201d are as wide as chasms.<\/p>\n

Going into the show, one should be aware that the Welsh accent and vernacular of the text are kept intact. That isn\u2019t an advisory, per se, but after the performance I saw, many patrons left the Ashby lamenting about how they couldn\u2019t understand a considerable amount of the dialogue. A proper advisory would mention that there are strobing lights and that the play dives head-first into the topics of birthing trauma, mental health, and self-destructive behavior, to name but a few motifs.<\/p>\n

The production itself is another creative exercise that\u2019s the trademark of Shotgun. As designed by Angrette McCloskey, the set presents the ravaged streets of Splott \u2014 with their broken, graffiti-marked brick walls and weeds escaping through the concrete \u2014 elevated atop a scaffolding.<\/p>\n

Between this and the way they never touch the walls of the Ashby, it\u2019s as if this one corner exists in its own universe, unmarked by any other realm of existence. Mason will frequently scurry through this scaffolding like a badger as Effie finds herself hopping frog-like from place-to-place. A LED lighting rig by Christian Mejia and a soundscape by James Ard add more subtle layers to the atmosphere.<\/p>\n

Of course, the real magic comes from director Michelle Talgarow and star Mason. For the past decade-plus, Talgarow has steadily been working her way up from Bay Area performer to one of our more reliable directors, especially for stories focused on women. She has a habit of finding the right balance between humor and pathos during often-traumatizing events in characters\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s given a worthy avatar in Mason, who brings an appropriately surreal understanding to the goings-on in Effie\u2019s life, but never turns Effie into a caricature. (A nod to dialect coach Emma Stevens-Johnson for helping to avoid some Dick van Dyke-style verbal pitfalls.) If anything, she\u2019s someone who experiences an awakening, a realization about life beyond self-indulgence and an awareness about the societal hypocrisies preventing folks like her from improving.<\/p>\n

That may be the one true flaw of Owen\u2019s script: after an hour-plus of dramatizing circumstances in gripping fashion, the playwright has Effie given an almost manifesto-like declaration of the story\u2019s underlying message. It\u2019s less a rallying cry than a case of hitting the audience over the head with the obvious. But before that happens, \u201cIphigenia in Splott\u201d is a gripping solo show about being on the bottom of the societal ladder. It may not clearly align with the source material, butit\u2019s a strong portrayal of issues that have, sadly, lasted for centuries.<\/p>\n

Charles Lewis III claims to be an award-nominated journalist, culture critic, and performing artist born and raised in San Francisco. He alleges to have been published in the San Francisco Chronicle, KQED, the San Francisco Examiner, and many more. Dodgy evidence of this can be found at The Thinking Man\u2019s Idiot.<\/p>\n

\u2018IPHIGENIA IN SPLOTT\u2019<\/p>\n

By Gary Owen, presented by Shotgun Players<\/p>\n

Through: Aug. 29<\/p>\n

Where: Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley<\/p>\n

Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes, no intermission<\/p>\n

Tickets: $23-$80; shotgunplayers.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you\u2019re a student of Greek mythology, you may have trouble drawing one-to-one parallels with the title character…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[389,184,764,7,332,967,181,23,143,145,144,1058,420],"class_list":["post-437603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-alameda-county","tag-bay-area","tag-berkeley","tag-california","tag-east-bay","tag-entertainment","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-theater","tag-things-to-do"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}