Review: HELEN OF THE WEST at 7 Stages

Essential Theatre's 2026 Play Festival opened this month at 7 Stages with the world premiere of HELEN OF THE WEST by Susan Swavely and directed by Peter Hardy. From myth to melodrama, Swavely's play asks the same timeless question: What would happen if the oppressed, weren't? Swavely and Essential Theatre have made HELEN OF THE WEST a fresh look at aging text while reflecting an impactful time in American history. Turns out, this Helen has just as much weight to carry in the West as the one in Troy, and the audience is left pondering the relentless, human pattern of power, privilege, and pretty in our world today.

With a grounded and authentic tone, Karine Dieuvil plays a charismatic Helen with a presence that immediately pulls you into the story. She wears the heavy crown of Helens before and after with an effortless strength, and plays Helen neither as purely sympathetic nor at fault. Throughout the story, Dieuvil carries Helen's questionable choices with grace, carefully holds complicated emotions while weathering her character's societal expectations, and motivates the story's tension with ease.

Authoritative and amusing Fred Galyean and the passionate as he is steady Kyle Brumley (as husband Matthew Laus and lover Alexander Paris) compete for Dieuvil's Helen without tipping the humor into melodrama. The usual strength and confidence of Hannah Brumley's performance of the husband's governess, Claudia, puts the audience as ease until the brothel owner Aphrodite played by Elaine Wadsworth skillfully and seductively moves around the stage capturing our eyes and ears with highly trained Salome talents. Kat Stoneback is as amusing as she is heartbreaking playing Effy Gene, carrying the effective work of giving the audience a wider lens on just how few real options some women have in this world, many of the ones prior, and perhaps more than we thought of the one we're in now.

Swavely has mentioned that Director and Essential Theatre founder Peter Hardy opted for live music and it pays off like a modern echo of the Greek chorus and it's true. Musician George Kotler-Wallace's guitar gives the production an additional texture that transports the stage to old country in our mind's eye.

HELEN OF THE WEST still carries Helen's inexhaustible burdens of the coveted, but set in the American frontier, Helen is more than the ancient myth evoked. HELEN OF THE WEST is a modern question of influence, responsibility, and systemic allegiance. The show runs until August 23rd.

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