The Phaeton/Apollo story is thoroughly modernized, told to a "therapist" (Katerine Riley), with Phaeton asking his dad for the "keys to the car" — the chariot which he drives too close to the sun. This sequence suffered (as did some others) from indistinct or weak projection; the serious pronouncements by the shrink were not audible enough to make their satiric impression.
A brief mimed Narcissus episode featured Bartoletti staring into a video camera (video projection was used instead of backdrops, with mixed effectiveness); another wordless snippet was that of Pandora (Wagner), the consequences of her actions most vividly visual on the large upstage screen.
The last two sections are tender happy-ending love stories, that of Psyche and Eros — "wherever our love goes, there we find our soul" — and Baucis and Philemon, who ask of Zeus and Bacchus that they die at the same moment — "let me not outlive my own capacity to love."
Thus, through Zimmerman's elegant and thought-provoking re-workings of Ovid's tales, and through URI's steady-on production, it becomes evident how timeless these stories of personal metamorphosis are and, once again, what we can learn from them.
Topics:
Theater
, Rainer Maria Rilke, URI Theatre, Ovid, More 
, Rainer Maria Rilke, URI Theatre, Ovid, Metamorphoses, Less 
