The Iliadwas a performance piece before it became a poem. Scholars estimate that it wasn't until the 6th century BCE that the epic war tale was written down and credited to Homer. Now the story is being recited in public again, this time by the actor Denis O'Hare, who has been working on this adaptation since 2005, in collaboration with Lisa Peterson.
Since “The Iliad” runs to six books, O'Hare and Peterson (who also directs) have wisely decided to explore only a small corner of the original. Hence the title, “An Iliad.” The focus is on the battle between the warrior-aristocrats Achilles and Hector, with attention paid, as well, to Achilles' grievances against Agamemnon, who kidnapped his war-prize beauty, Chryseis. Achilles' rage is cosmic and brutal, and it eventually brings the wrath of Zeus down on Greeks and Trojans alike.
O'Hare, wearing modern clothes and working on a near-bare stage -- and aided by Scott Zielinski's lighting wizardy and Mark Bennett's evocative musical score (played by double-bassist, Brian Ellingsen) -- is a commanding presence throughout. He fights the Trojan War all by himself, taking on various key characters with dazzling ease, speaking the Homeric language with the cadences of fresh-sounding, natural speech--that is, directly and swiftly.
An Iliad is a war poem, one which not only questions the validity of war in Homer's time but the validity of every war that has followed in its wake, from Alexander the Great to Syria and Afghanistan. War is horrible, Homer tells us, but it also seems to be inescapable.
