Wright & Grainger: The Gods The Gods The Gods
De Parel Spiegeltent at Perth Cultural Centre, 1 February 2023

The gods they gather/From out the corner shops/And out the mouths of the tube stops/Collars up against the cold/Hats wrapped against the rain/Something’s changed/But when?

These gathering gods are The Gods; Zeus, Hermes, Tiresias, all those bleached marble statues in ancient tourist temples, but they’re meeting this bleak night down at the local cafe in some nondescript suburb in an even more unremarkable town somewhere in the north of England. 

They’ve got a lot on their minds, uppermost of which is whether they are redundant. 

The question is, if they are no longer the gods, who are?  The answer, as Nietzsche and The Gods The Gods The Gods both assert, is that we are.  

I’ve got a particular soft spot for Alexander Wright and Phil Grainger, whose Orpheus (2019) and Eurydice (2020) are precisely what Fringe was made for and is best at.

Emotional and erudite, free-spirited and aware, their device is to take the great myths and legends of Classical Greece and re-set them in contemporary times and places, with gods and heroes straight off the street.

Those superb earlier shows were their cases in point; The Gods The Gods The Gods is their thesis.

If you’re getting the impression we’re dealing here with a history lesson or philosophical treatise, stop right there.
 
Wright, Grainger and the third member of the cast, the Australian actor and writer Megan Drury, are scintillating and generous performers, creating an enveloping environment (The Gods is performed from three stages surrounding the standing – and often dancing – audience). 

The show is actually the live performance of a 12-song album (lyrics by Wright, music by Grainger), mortared by Wright’s verse narrative that ranges from William Blake romanticism to slam poetry.

The songs, accompanied by Grainger’s guitar and Tom Figgins’ sound bed are melodic, driving and instantly approachable, performed with clarity, precision – and loud.

They’re made for dancing, and even in a sparsely populated spiegeltent on a hot Perth day, there was jiggling welling up in the crowd.

The songs and poems tell four stories – Gods, Lovers, Sky, Bridge – all of which revolve around mortality and eternity, the human spirit and the sacred godliness of love. 

In them, two instantly enchanted young lovers, a widow who turns grief into a temple of memories, and a man on the very brink of oblivion who is rescued and rescues himself, end their stories, and the show, with a catechism and a blessing: 

“We are here, this is now, and, love, that’s enough”.

The Gods The Gods The Gods has another message, unsaid but loud and clear: “If this is the Twilight of the Gods – let’s dance!”

Pictured top: ‘The Gods The Gods The Gods’ poses the question if Gods are irrelevant, who takes their place? Photo: Supplied

The Gods The Gods The Gods is at De Speigeltent at Perth Cultural Centre until 12 February 2023.