‘AN ILIAD’ TAKES VIEWERS ON A DARK, COMPELLING JOURNEY
In Lisa Peterson and Denis O'Hare's play “An Iliad,” an ancient poet recounts a story from the Trojan War that he's been retelling to audiences around the world for millennia.
For avid San Diego theatergoers, the poet's story may sound familiar. A new streaming production of “An Iliad” that North Coast Repertory Theatre launched Dec. 9 is the third time the play has been produced locally since 2012. The first production at La Jolla Playhouse was moody and dark. The second, at New Village Arts, was lighter and more varied in its emotional tone. And the latest, starring San Diego actor Richard Baird, is the most visceral of them all.
In his 25th production at North Coast Rep, Baird manages to make the play both startling and highly entertaining, feats rarely achieved in many of the streaming theater productions I've watched over the past four months. Because director David Ellenstein and cinematographer Aaron Rumley could film “An Iliad,” it opens not onstage but on the beach, a mile-and-a-half west of the Solana Beach theater. The viewer watches the raggedy poet walking along Lomas Santa Fe Avenue with his well-worn suitcase in hand, then into the empty theater, where he f lips on the stage lights and begins warming up the imaginary “audience” for his tale.
The 90-minute play recounts Homer's ancient Greek epic poem “The
Iliad,” where the Greek warrior Achilles duels to the death with the Trojan prince Hector in the final year of the war. Although Baird's poet whips himself into a frenzy of blood lust in the pulse-pounding climax,
the play isn't about the glory of war but its brutality and futility.
The 10-year Trojan war cost both nations thousands of lives, yet few of the soldiers remember why it even started — sentiments likely echoed by combatants in all of the world's wars in the 3,000 years since, which Baird names in one long, impressive take. The poet's eternal job, assigned by the Greek gods, is to keep this war story alive. But over time, the poet — who wears the army dog tags of a contemporary soldier — has grown weary of the task and it's now become more of a cautionary tale.
Filmed from three angles, Baird directly addresses the viewer using little but his resonant bass voice and a few minor props — a ladder, a ghost light and a bench — to tell the story. But that's all he needs for his engrossing and often funny tour de force performance. At side stage, cellist Amanda Schaar emphasizes the most dramatic parts of the script with an
original underscore of raw sounds that are often intentionally unsettling, but occasionally too loud.
The play features scenic design by Marty Burnett, with film editing by Rumley and Chris Williams. In a month filled with mostly light holiday fare, “An Iliad” is some serious and highquality alternative programming.