Entrapment

When we speak, Rosie Lockhart and her Penelope cast mates are a week away from an audience. They're drilling Irish playwright Enda Walsh's take on Homer's epic The Odyssey, running it and shining his words. Lockhart plays the title role, Odysseus' ever-faithful wife who has to deal with a throng of suitors while her husband's away fighting the Trojans. “It remains true to [The Odyssey's] premise but the writing's much more contemporary,” Lockhart says. “The situation is also adapted. It takes place in a drained swimming pool, at the house of Queen Penelope.”

Not many people would remember a drained swimming pool in Homer, though. “It kind of represents good times gone by,” she says, “pre-war time, parties, fun, entertaining, luxury. Everything that would have been at the house of Penelope and Odysseus before the Trojan War. It's also a trap.”

It's a trap. A trap for men. Of course. Supporting Lockhart is a cast of four men who play suitors competing for the Queen's love. They're trapped by the swimming pool; the Queen's charm and their own desire.

“They're in love with the idea of her and what she can bring to them. They each vie for her love, which will bring them security and shame and honour – and all the rest. When there is love there is also hate.”

Penelope then is a kind of catalyst for men to show their true colours; all their beauty and ugliness. It presents a strange prospect for Lockhart, who needs to stay present in the audience's mind even if she isn't present on stage.

“Even though she's the title role, her presence is ominous; you don't see a lot of her throughout this particular story… On one side she's a woman who doesn't speak and she's quietened by this scenario, but flip the coin and she's empowered by this. She has control.”

But it seems there is a delicate balance here between comedy and tragedy; levity and seriousness. “It is very funny, there's slapstick in there and the writing's fantastic, and the guys are great. Then she appears and it just kind of shifts things, and it's kind of a surprise as well.”

Acclaimed playwright Walsh turns out a glistening piece of work, Lockhart says. “He is a great wordsmith. The language is particularly funny and rhythmic. You've got four guys in their Speedos in a swimming pool. There's a bit of stage fighting, and a bit of bad stage fighting, and a barbecue, and sausages and men trying to out-do each other.” But at the same time, “the themes of the play are kind of epic. Being built out of a Greek text, the ideals are always very large and the stakes are always very high.”

Lockhart is joined in the cast by fellow VCA alumnus, Matt Whitty, who is Red Stitch's graduate associate for 2013. She says that the imbalance of power represented in the play is certainly not replicated in the rehearsal room, and that Penelope is shaping up to be a perfect professional debut for the pair. “At the start we sat down around the table with Alistair [Smith – director] and read the script, started talking about it and realised that once you're in the room together everybody is equal and everybody has a voice and something to bring. I found that really humbling and exciting.”