Stage Review - Athena (ArtsWest)

Stage Review - Athena
Presented By: ArtsWest - West Seattle, WA
Show Run: April 10 - May 04, 2025
Date Reviewed: Friday, April 11, 2025 (Opening Weekend)
Run Time: 90 Minutes (no intermission)
Reviewed By: Greg Heilman

How does one present a play that is largely about the sport of fencing on stage? Moreover, how does one design it in a thrust space, with seats on three sides of the stage? That general design question was just one of the challenges facing director Kathryn Van Meter when she took on Athena, the play by Gracie Gardner, which is currently running on stage through May 4 at ArtsWest in West Seattle. The play centers around two rival teenage fencing competitors, both vying to make their national team, two polar opposite personalities from disparate sides of the economic and social sides of the proverbial tracks who decide that the best way to improve their skills is to train together. What student athletes Mary Wallace and Athena, her “fencing name”, don’t expect, though, is the friendship that they make along the way, as well as the requisite benefits and challenges, both personally and athletically that such a friendship brings. And while the play is not solely about fencing, it surely is a large part of it, and a significant amount of the 90 minutes of the play is spent on the piste, that long rectangular area on which fencers apply their craft. As this area is so important to the storytelling, both from a location and setting perspective, and with only two actors on this long rectangular surface, facing each other when they’re in the act of fencing, it’s clear that some thought had to be put into how this set is designed.

The answer is in the angles. What Kathryn and scenic designer Parmida Ziaei have done is they have placed the piste at an angle to the center section of seats in the ArtsWest theatre so that it’s never parallel or perpendicular to the audience and that regardless of where the actors are, on or off the piste, the audience can see, and hear them. In addition to this aspect, the design of this piece hits every mark that it needs to, and then some. Any fan of fencing will be pleasantly surprised not just at how realistic the piste looks, but how much attention to detail Kathryn and her team have put into this entire production design. Working with the Salle Auriol Fencing Club, each of the actors prepared for the play by learning the ins and outs of the sport, the rules, the equipment, and of course, how to fence. Fencing choreographers and coaches Aiden Holmes and Sarah Lippai worked with them to make sure that the fencing on stage doesn’t just look real, because it is, but that it also follows the story line; the points need to be deliberate and in order, the actors have to earn points in the specific style of their characters, and the results can’t be in question for the audience to completely suspend their collective disbelief.

For a play that is a two hander, just two actors on stage and no ensemble to lean on for reactions or to play off of for energy, there’s a lot of pressure on those actors, and to deliver their work confidently, it requires a lot of preparation time, to make sure that each performer is sure in their dialogue delivery, to work through not just their own words, but how to react to their scene partner. Add to that the need to train in the sport of fencing, and Athena is quite the time commitment for any actor, a commitment that was clearly made not just by the actors in this play, but by the creative team as well, given how well Friday’s show was delivered. And yes, it’s apparent that Kathryn and her team prepared quite a bit for this, Nova Dobrev’s costume designs include full fencing regalia for each actor, from head to toe, allowing the audience to see the complexities in the equipment that these athletes don for their practices and matches. From headgear, to chest protectors, to the overlaying garments, it’s all here, again ArtsWest working with Salle Auriol to make sure they’re fully equipped. On lights and sound, Anna Shih and Andi Villegas respectively, one will immediately notice the fluorescent bulbs that trace the outline of the piste, suspended above the stage, and when I saw them on Friday I hoped they’d be used for a particular purpose, and much to my delight they are. Creatively used to help score the matches, points identified in red or green depending on the athlete scoring them, or to provide lighting effects, the lights are versatile and practical, and as the matches progress, and the lights count up the score, Andi uses her underscore to build suspense until the point a winner is declared, not to mention her use of sport-realistic sounds for noting points achieved. Another quick note on the piste, it’s not just set diagonally for sight-lines, but it’s also raised up, itself a stage, allowing the actors to be lifted up when exhibiting their fencing, providing a back for the actors to lean against when they sit, and as a place for each to keep prop devices in a drawer used in scenes that take place in their respective homes, locations that are mostly implied and scenes in which the audience obtains some depth of insight into the characters’ personalities and their backstories. Finally, on lights and sound, as the two girls develop their friendship and head to a crucial night out, the pair find themselves in a nightclub, and here Anna and Andi provide an atmosphere that contrasts the serious and altogether deliberateness and precision of the fencing scenes. Well presented all around.

As the play begins, the audience meets both Mary Wallace and Athena, two competitors, the former from Teaneck, New Jersey and the latter from New York City. At first blush, there is more that separates these two than joins them, and not just the distance. Mary Wallace comes from a stable but strict family, she puts a priority not just on fencing, but also on academics, all with the hope of getting a scholarship in fencing. She’s nervous in social situations while Athena is boisterous, confident, and outgoing. The audience never learns Athena’s real name, though she whispers it to Mary Wallace so that she can tell her father, a requirement he put forth in order for the two to be able to train together. Athena explains to Mary that she chose that as her “fencing name” because it’s “like goddess of strategic warfare and all that.”, that she lives with her father, who smokes in front of her, despite her training, and that her home life isn’t altogether a happy one. They do work out an arrangement to train together, and in what is a study in how two disparate individuals from contrasting backgrounds can come together and build a relationship based on a common experience, the audience follows this pair through their training up through their national team trials and to something that will serve as the ultimate test of their new found friendship. The play is nicely layered, Gracie Gardner does well to present the sport of fencing in a positive way, illustrating the drama of the sport’s competition, while at the same time shining a light on teenagers coming of age in an environment of social inequality, and struggling to find themselves socially and competitively, learning how it is to be both a good loser, and even more importantly a good, confident winner.

Anteia DeLaney and Allison Renee are Mary Wallace and Athena in this production, and I can’t say enough about the admiration I have for these two actors, for their ability to portray the personalities of their characters as well as the athleticism, precision, and skill displayed in their fencing. It’s difficult to say where the athletes end and the actors begin in their portrayals, but at their core, Mary Wallace and Athena are just teenagers finding their way. This is evident in the emotional depth of the performances from Anteia and Allison, the pace of their dialogue, and the way they carry themselves in these roles. Case in point, their initial conversation while they’re training, when the audience begins to learn right along with the girls about their exercise regimens and how they differ, a conversation that devolves into gross foods that each have created on their own, their competitiveness coming to the fore as they each try to one-up each other with their stories and creations. It’s a funny back and forth, the delivery extremely quick and naturally reactive, funny, as much of the play is, until Mary Wallace becomes self-conscious and psychoanalyzes why Athena wants them to train together. And while fencing is such an important part of this play, it’s really a backdrop to these conversations, another one being when Athena describes why she doesn’t like music (“It’s embarrassing!”), a discussion that takes place while Anteia and Allison are training with pool noodles. That’s part of the impressiveness of how this piece is presented, the important dialogue, and the choreography of movement that occurs during training sessions, when the girls really learn the most about each other, but while they’re doing it, the actors are constantly in motion. This movement keeps the audience engaged and maintains the pace of the show, so when the fencing itself stops, that there’s not an associated full stop to the flow of the show. It’s also nice to see how this relationship transforms each of the girls from the beginning of the play to the end, how each has helped the other to become more confident, or more sympathetic. Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Alanah Pascual who plays Jamie, and who is also the show’s assistant director. Jamie is a small role, but one that is important to the overall story arc and Jamie does a nice job with the few minutes that she’s on stage. It’s a full team effort here, and like Kathryn Van Meter explained during our interview, in the episode of Behind the Curtain with The Sound on Stage that featured Athena, putting a show together really is akin to a team sport, where the creatives, cast, and crew all work together to produce something that is only successful if all three are reaching toward the same goal, and if they each contribute with the same level of effort and desire.

Athena, Gracie Gardner’s 2018 play about two teenage fencing prodigies who come from disparate backgrounds and train together for nationals, and find an unlikely friendship along the way, is a study in how a shared experience can overcome the differences we sometimes let hold us back, how if we let ourselves open up to the possibility, we can learn from each other to become better people, and how to become comfortable in our own success. An extremely funny and heartfelt coming of age story, Athena features a pair of excellent actors and athletes under the direction of Kathryn Van Meter who perfectly capture the essence and the drama of the sport of fencing while presenting a story of a new and budding friendship that is tested just as much as their fencing skills are. Whether or not you become a fan of the sport of fencing after seeing this piece, though I’m inclined to believe you will if you aren’t already, this cast, crew, and creative team will certainly make you a fan of Athena.

Gracie Gardner’s Athena runs on stage at ArtsWest in West Seattle through May 4. For more information, including ticket availability and sales, visit https://www.artswest.org/.

Photo credit: John McLellan