Paul Selar’s review of Labyrinth (2024)

Into The Store you enter at Abbotsford Convent – a series of subfloor rooms beneath the site’s main gothic edifice – for Forest Collective’s latest new work, Labyrinth, another impressive work as part of Melbourne’s Midsumma Festival. 

Thereon, this intelligently conceived, thrilling and evocative new work composed by artistic director Evan J. Lawson, to a libretto by Daniel Szesiong Todd – who happens to also play the protagonist – unfolds in a concise 45-minute gripping adventure. 

Based on the ancient Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, Labyrinth is an enthralling and touching experience that not only adds depth to the myth but cleverly releases performance from the traditional seated theatre to enable it.

Two dancers (Ashley Dougan and Jesse Matthews) await either side of an arched entrance while Theseus (librettist Daniel Szesiong Todd) invites his audience, as fellow Athenians, to follow him into the labyrinth. Flautist Kim Tan unleashes a series of mellow wafting notes as the contingent proceeds in. The work’s seduction is quickly established.

Theseus, illegitimate and abandoned son of King Aegeus who he wishes to prove worthy of, intends to slaughter the Minotaur, half man – half bull, a creature born of King Minos’ wife Queen Pasiphae and a bull sent by Zeus and imprisoned in a labyrinth engineered by the architect Daedalus. Athens must atone for misdeeds against Crete by sending men and women each year to be committed to the labyrinth as a sacrifice to the Minotaur. 

To read the full review, originally published by Australian Arts Review, go here.