Penelope review – Odysseus’s other half sings of her own twists and turns

Underbelly, Cowgate, EdinburghGrace McLean brings vocal and emotional range in the central role of Alex Bechtel’s Homeric song cycle She is the one played by Anne Hathaway in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, the central figure in Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad and the inspiration behind a 2010 play by Enda Walsh. And here she is again, this time alone with her thoughts, a longsuffering woman in white, in a seductive song cycle by Alex Bechtel. Penelope is played by Broadway actor Grace McLean who brings both vocal and emotional range to the part. Drily witty, defiant and elegant, she is the wife of Odysseus, doggedly hanging on for her husband’s return long after the end of the Trojan war. Much to her annoyance – and occasional temptation – a load of suitors are camping out in her house, ready to take his place. A dramatic challenge presents itself here: there can be little action with a character whose principal function is to wait. But, with a book credited to Bechtel, McLean and director Eva Steinmetz, things keep ticking along for most of the hour-long production for Rigor + Ruckus. Only a reflective song towards the end, in which Penelope looks back to her early