‘An Iliad’ @ Undermain Theatre

Photo by Ginger Berry

—Martha Heimberg

The good news is that Undermain Theatre’s encore presentation of An Iliad, by Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare based on Robert Fagles’ terse, battle-ready translation, is as compelling and dynamic as it was in 2012 when I first saw it. Bruce DuBose still mesmerizes audiences as the wandering bard Homer retelling the age-old tale of the Greek and Trojan war. That brutal conflict lasted nine years. The play lasts 90 minutes, with one15-minute intermission added since the first time I saw it. I was glad for the respite. 

The bad news is that today’s stories of raging, murderous battles and piteous, grieving survivors continues to be all too familiar, right up to today’s New York Times’ wrenching stories of Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip and Iran. Never mind the angst-inducing possibility that the United States might join in the fray.  Are humans genetically programmed for war?

At one point in the play, DuBose pauses in his tale and begins unfolding a fat parchment roll, reading off in a long breath the names of the many wars, from the Trojan War to the present, that we have waged against one other. Too many numbing minutes later, we exhale along with the bard.

Gods know we love a good story as much as we seem unable to shake our war addiction. And DuBose has the honed dramatic voice and body of an actor who can deliver that story as vividly as if we are standing at the walls of Troy, praying to the muse along with the poet for the words to render the agonizing struggle in all its gore and grandeur. As the epic rolls out, the actor steps into the character of raging Achilles bent on revenge, and then becomes pleading Priam, a grief-struck father pleading for the return of his son’s dead body to be buried back in Troy.

Working with the late Katherine Owens’ original direction and Giva Taylor’s costumes, the play begins with the poet traveling from town to town in his rumpled suit, looking a little beat up and pausing to pray in Greek. John Arnone’s original set opens up the intimate basement theater to its full extent, with just a few tables set with bread and fruit and goblets. They’ve even saved the big blackboards filled with Arnone’s perfectly chalked-on Greek lines, reminding us that these ever-never-changing words were first spoken and then written.

We hear those words spoken once again. The Poet and the Musician played by Paul Semrad, creating a nuanced soundscape using everything from a mandolin to BBs rolling in a metal pan, move around the playing area telling us of the hundreds of Greek ships carrying thousands of warriors—and the stinking heap of dead men and horses, and the disastrous plague visited on the Greeks by an angry god. Rob Menzel hovers with his guitar near a stand bearing a helmet and shield, joining in when DuBose plays a ukulele and sings a countrified song about men drawn into a long war.

The poet cuts away from the battlefield scene briefly to address the initial reason the Greeks attacked Troy. “Helen has been stolen and now they’ve come here to get her back—it’s always something. But it’s a good story,” he says. Then his shoulders sag and he confesses, “Every time I sing this song, I hope it’s the last time.”

But the war goes on, and more mythical characters make at least a cameo appearance here, as DuBose becomes a seductive Helen or her cowardly ladies’ man, the Trojan princeling Paris. “Shining Hector” is the richest portrayal of all. The Trojan hero loves his family and his city and is ruggedly brave in battle. But there’s more to him than that. DuBose pauses, searching for words, and then asks, “Why is it so hard to describe a good man?” But brave Hector, breaker of horses, becomes as real for us as angry Achilles in all his rage.

In one scene, DuBose is both the narrator looking on and Achilles’ beloved friend Patroclus, utterly swept up in a fury of blood lust. DuBose wields his shield expertly and then turns to the audience: “You know that feeling when you can kill someone? Patroclus’s heart is filled with battle frenzy.” To put things in perspective, he then asks us to recall the surge of road rage we feel when someone cuts us off at a busy exit. Everybody laughs with relief from the bloody scene —and in shocked recognition.

A theatre event not to miss—lest we forget.

WHEN: Through June 29th
WHERE: 3200 Main St, Dallas
WEB: https://www.undermain.org/an-iliad