How far will you go to see the person you love just one more time? Would you trade the lives of your friends for the chance to see her? Would you fight with the gods themselves to hold her in your arms once more?
The answer for Odysseus of Ithaca is, yes. The story of the Odyssey written by Homer (Not Simpson) many centuries ago, has recently been adapted into a musical.
Written By Jorge Rivera-Herrans the Musical of the Odyssey called ‘EPIC the Musical’. Follows the story of Odysseus as he attempts to return home from the ten year Trojan war.
Key word ‘attempts’ he ends up taking almost every wrong turn possible. In both the musical adaptation and Homer’s original work we follow Odysseus through his journey in attempting to get back home to Ithaca.
The musical adaption featuring 40 songs is not meant to be a replacement of the original. The musical takes many creative liberties to follow a story that the writer wanted to make about the Odyssey, think of it like a fanfiction of the odyssey.
The musical takes the main plot of the Odyssey and turns a lot of the qualities into a more forward story, the main threats become more human but a more menacing presence in the story that the musical presents.
With the threats being more threatening, it raises the stakes of the journey and all of them have a killer song, Polyphemus, Poseidon, Circe, Zeus, and of course the suitors.
The songs are there to establish who they are, what they stand for, and why they are doing what they’re doing. All of it feels natural in the scope of the song.
“You are the worst kind of good cause you’re not even great,” Poseidon says these words to Odysseus after he challenges his pride. With the God Poseidon it says a lot about how the gods work in the musical.
“I remember actions of passion, I have been in love once before,” Circe says to Odysseus as he is trying to convince her to allow him and his men to leave her island, while the line seems like something that is only relevant here it actually comes up again later with one of the other elements present in the story..
“Oh my son look how much you’ve grown, oh my boy, the sweetest joy I’ve known,” is what Odysseus says when he reunites with his son Telemachus after 20 years away from home. The song is one of the most emotional of the entire musical and only topped by the next song,
“Would you fall in love with me again?” is the question that Odysseus asks to his wife Penelope in the song named after this exact question. This song is about the reunion between Odysseus and Penelope, after 20 years away from each other they are finally reunited, but have twenty years changed them?
The question is about how much of themselves was sacrificed in the 20 years it’s been so will their love still prevail? Well there’s only one way to answer that question, go to Spotify and Listen to EPIC the musical.
