“You see” are the last words spoken by the Poet in An Iliad. It’s a fitting end to a piece that consists of a man on a mostly bare stage conjuring images through mere speech. Our storyteller has narrated a 100-minute condensation of Homer’s Bronze Age slaughter chronicle, The Iliad. The language sears impossible-to-stage tableaux of death and destruction on your mind’s eye. So, yes, by listening we do see—almost more than our hearts can bear.
The Poet is played in repertory by Stephen Spinella and Denis O’Hare (the latter of whom adapted the script with director Lisa Peterson from a translation by Robert Fagles). Critics have been asked to attend twice, which could be disastrous if you don’t like the material first time around. Happily, here are two of our finest actors and the text—recounting the defiance of Achilles, the killing of Patroclus, the valiant death of Hector and, finally, Priam’s nighttime journey to beg for the body of his son—is what you might call time-tested: elemental episodes of heroes and gods balancing honor against the will to live. It’s not a straight adaptation; the Poet is presented as a PTSD-addled refugee, dressed in tattered clothes, adding contemporary touches and avoiding parts of the legend that might rip open his psychic wounds. But this isn’t a pat jeremiad against war. Sure, we get the message that it is hell (a notion only conservative chickenhawks would take issue with), but also that Hector and Achilles are complex, honorable warriors, and bloodlust is part of human nature.
Enough about the song; which singer should you hear? Although the two soloists share a certain cerebral tartness, watching them back-to-back, you appreciate their broad differences. Spinella is languid, dancerly, droll and patrician; O’Hare is spiky, bustling, gallows-humorous and earthy. To her credit, Peterson doesn’t force them into the same blocking, but lets the vocal and physical score emerge individually. An Iliad is pure theater: shocking, glorious, primal and deeply satisfying. Each actor has unique brushes and paints, but both fill the eye with astounding sights.—David Cote