Playwrights: Denis O'Hare and Lisa Peterson. At: Court Theatre. Tickets: 773-753-4472; www.CourtTheatre.org; $40-$60. Runs through: Dec. 11
Those thoroughly familiar with The Iliad may find this piece an engaging reconnect with a portion of that work's central narrative, although wedding it to an unabashed anti-war message won't be every classicist's cup of tea. I don't know what those unfamiliar with Homeric legend will make of it, but I'd be a fool to think such people don't exist in an era in which increasing numbers of miseducated and undereducated people pass for presidential candidates.
Suggesting an edited or altered version, this 90-minute work quite properly is called AN Iliad (vs. THE Iliad). It doesn't disguise its incorporation of contemporary commentary and explanation of the ancient mythologies. In a way, this restores the original performance tradition in which a solo poet-performer (going back to Homer himself) would shape the material by additions and subtractions to suit particular needs or circumstance. The single performer here is called, simply, Poet.
As staged by Court Theatre artistic director Charles Newell, An Iliad is given a post-apocalyptic look, with the Poet appearing as a refugee or combatant during or after a time of war, sheltering himself within the ruins of some industrial infrastructure of concrete and pipes, perhaps the inside of a dam or spillway. Here, the Poet exercises his compulsionhis genuine needto speak, to tell a story within the Beckett-like confines of a chamber that is both refuge and prison. It reminded me of Hamm's long recitation of a vague past in Beckett's Endgame, and also of Ray Bradbury's play, To the Chicago Abyss, about a man who remembers what the world was like before the bombs fell. Todd Rosenthal's massive set hellishly spews sand and piercing light and drips water, and yet is richly detailed and textured with the rubble of bricks, concrete and steel.
A distinguished and versatile actor, Timothy Edward Kane, acts the Poet. With beard and shaved head, he looks much rougher than I've seen him. He takes no time at all to warm up the audience, as it were, but jumps immediately into a presentational and mannered performance: anguisheda rubbing of face and head, arbitrary moves up and down a steep slope within the set, wild emotional responses to his own words. At times, director Newell seems to have Kane move only to make use of the massive set. Such an interpretation is not necessarily inappropriate, but it calls attention to itself and makes one wonder "why." Would this material not be just as effective, maybe more so, with a simpler presentation? The point, after all, isn't the presentation but the tale, the words, and Kane doesn't need the scenic and performing gloss to prove he is master of them, especially when delivering Robert Fagles' vigorous and vivid translation of Homer.