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written and directed by Griffin Hewitt

Panic Theatre, B Street Arts Hub, 1100 Bathurst Street, Toronto

March 28–April 4, 2026

Satyr: “I am a ship / That is sinking”

It is likely that anyone choosing to attend a play titled Cyclops: A Satyr Play will have some idea of what the Cyclops is in Greek mythology and maybe even what a satyr play is in ancient Greek drama. If not, that person will have no clue what Griffin Hewitt is doing during his hour-long entertainment piece that aims to be a modern take on the ancient satyr play. They will see a person doing lots of clowning around, singing and soliciting audience participation but to what end will be a mystery.

Students of drama learn about Greek tragedy, but few are ever taught about satyr plays. As I have written previously on the subject, “After every trilogy of tragedies presented at the festival of Dionysus was a short comic play, called a satyr play, written by the same author on the same subject as the tragedies but treating it with ribald humour. Only one complete satyr play survives and that is Cyclops written about 428BC by Euripides”. We don’t know what the trilogy of plays were that preceded it, but they presumably dealt with material from Homer’s Odyssey, the Cyclops episode being part of Book 9. There are many translations of Cyclops into English, the first by no less a person than the poet Percy Bysshe Shelly in 1824. In 2011, I was lucky enough to a performance of Cyclops adapted by Jessie Fraser at the Toronto Fringe Festival that proved that the play is still very funny and very much worth reviving.

The original play has a cast of three – the Cyclops, Odysseus and Silenus, a satyr in service to the Cyclops – plus a Chorus of Satyrs. In Graham Hewitt’s reimagining of the play, there is only one character, the Satyr (likely Silenus), played by Hewitt. When we enter the small performance space at the B Street Arts Hub, we discover the Satyr passed out on the floor with empty cans of beer, a large dildo and other detritus scattered about. The room holds an audience of only 24 arranged in three sides around the acting area. We learn that this is a karaoke room on a ship and realize what looks like a black stand-alone speaker is really a portable karaoke machine.

When the Satyr comes to, he wonders where he is and who we are. There is no fourth wall here. Hewitt has conceived of the play as the Satyr’s attempt to recall what happened on the previous night to make him drink so much more than usual and he asks for our assistance in various ways to help him tell his story. The Satyr babbles on about choices and we finally see that he has a rather important choice to make after what happened last night. In the end he leaves it up to us to make the choice for him.

Luckily for the brain-addled Satyr, his story has already been broken down into chapters, with each heading giving him a prompt as to what to say next. If the show is meant to be the Satyr’s impromptu retelling of his tale, these visual cues completely undermine such a premise.

The Satyr tells his tale but never mentions his name, or that of Odysseus, whom he simply calls the “Hero”, or of Polyphemus, whom he simply calls the “Monster”. Anyone who does not already know the story will be hard pressed to understand what is happening, especially since the Satyr omits two of the most notable parts. The Satyr mentions that the Hero, whom the Satyr imagines as Brad Pitt as Achilles in the 2004 movie Troy, saves himself but is not happy until he saves all his men from the Monster with a taste for human flesh. The Satyr describes the plot of lulling The Monster into an alcoholic stupor before heating a pointed log and plunging it into the Monster’s single eye. But the Satyr does not mention how the Hero’s men escape, i.e. by clinging to the bellies of the Monster’s sheep since the now-sightless creature can only feel his sheep to count them.

More famous than Odysseus’ men’s escape its Odysseus’ final tricking of Polyphemus. To deal with this, the Satyr plays the parlour game known as The Name Game or Forehead Detective with a member of the audience in which the name stuck to one forehead is Nobody. This is an allusion to the famous means by which Odysseus taunted Polyphemus, who asked who had blinded him, to which Odysseus replied, “Οὔτις” (meaning “No One”). Thus, the blinded creature was condemned to telling others that “No One” blinded him much to their derision. Unfortunately, playing The Name Game with an audience member does not translate into seeing Polyphemus experiencing Odysseus’ cruel wit in the context of the story.

In each of the various chapters of the Satyr’s story (there seemed to be at least seven), he sings a song with words projected onto a wall behind him. The music by Juliette Jones is poppy with glides into disco and ballads. Hewitt proves to have a fine singing voice. It’s a pity he has to use a microphone in such a small space, but that’s part of concept that we’re all in a karaoke room.

Hewitt does a good impression of totally wasted mythological creature whose desire for drink is equal to is desire for sex. That stance does tend to conflict with the Satyr’s other role of master of ceremonies of the storytelling event-cum-party that he leads. Separate audience members are asked to read the words of the Monster and sometimes everyone does. And sometimes we sing along. Someone may even look up a word like “phronesis” (meaning “practical wisdom”) of which there is little evidence in Hewitt’s play.

Promo material for the show says, “Every day, people choose between feeding the monster or saving the stranger, but this Satyr refuses to pick. He’s going to make you do it”. If that is the point of the show, it never gets through because of the Satyr’s hyperactive interest in turning everything into a party game.

Hewitt states that Panic Theatre “creates work that toes the line between theatre and immersive experience, creating interactive theatre experiences that bring audiences into contact with pocket worlds, interactive games, and characters from both ancient stories and everyday life.” Hewitt’s play does accomplish this. The question is whether we learn anything from the experience. There’s nothing wrong with an hour of Greek mythology-infused interactive fun, but I got much more out the 2011 adaptation of Euripides’ text than I did out of Hewitt’s partying.

Christopher Hoile

Photos: Griffin Hewitt as the Satyr. © 2026 Matthew Reid.

For tickets visit: www.tift.ca.