Looking at the wild stuff inside us
Theatre show SELENE, a story about the goddess and the dark side of the moon, is coming to town. A radical explosion of ancient myth, it’s about how we grow up defined by our bodies, the light (and dark) sides of us, and all the wild stuff inside of us.
The show is presented by UK-based Wright&Grainger, and told and made with Megan Drury. Based in North Yorkshire, she got involved with the company after emigrating from Australia. Drury says she found a “gorgeous alchemy” in the work that Wight&Grainger do and what she’s now interested in as an artist. While starting out on the path to acting, she now refers to herself as an artist, as not all of her endeavours are strictly acting.
“I trained many moons ago as an actor,” Drury says. “That’s primarily been my career path – as an actor and a performer. In recent years, my creative passions have expanded beyond traditional theatre and screen work, and I’ve really sought out work that is pushing at doing things differently – at engaging with audiences differently, at different formats of communicating stories and gathering communities together.”
SELENE is a sibling show to the hugely acclaimed HELIOS, which focused on the son of the god of the sun. It was about pride, growing up and the invisible monuments we plant in our landscape. Drury explains that Wight&Grainger always knew they wanted to do a sibling to that show, and they knew they wanted to do it with her.
“Which was gorgeous to have these beautifully brilliant, creative minds and talents wanting to craft a show with me. So I’ve been part of the creative process of SELENE, I’ve made the show with them.”
The show follows the goddess and the dark side of the moon, looking at Selene’s child, Pandia. While Selene is a very important character, Pandia in ancient Greek mythology is the goddess of the full moon and the show explores her growing up.
“The story really is about growing up defined by the body that we’re in, defined by the people around us, and finding our way through to something that feels authentically us.”
It tracks Pandia from 12 until 24, meeting her friends and family along the way. Beyond finding oneself it looks at embracing all the different aspects of ourselves, embracing the dark sides of us and the light sides of us – and is there even such a thing as dark and light sides, or are we just not looking at them properly?
Alex Wright is still the wordsmith and Phil Gtanger the musician, and Drury got to step in and be part of the development process. They all dug deep into the story to understand how it sits in her body and voice, and as a result, there’s pieces of hers scattered throughout.
“Alex knows me very, very well, so even in the writing of it, I feel like he wove in parts of me already. Even when I came to his first draft, I felt like he and Phil – even in the music as well – had really captured parts of me in a way that I felt really touched by and really moved by.”
Bringing her own creative input felt natural from that point and she’s described it as a beautiful experience since then.
“It takes all these elements of ancient Greek myth about the moon and pieces them all together in this beautiful interwoven structure. I think people tend to walk out feeling like they’re a part of something, feeling part of a community, feeling uplifted.”
The intimate theatre experience that is SELENE will take place as part of Wānaka’s Aspiring Conversations on Saturday, 28 March, from 6pm at Lake Wānaka Centre, and at Te Atamira Queenstown on Sunday, 29 March, from 5pm. Tickets and more information can be found at festivalofcolour.co.nz for Wānaka and teatamira.nz for Queenstown.
