Adapted from Homer, translation by Robert Fagles
Dowling Studio, Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis, MN
October 20, 2013
You may be thinking to yourselves (if you're still reading this...and I'm unconvinced I have any readers beyond my mom and sister) that I've lost my mind this week. There are currently more blog entries in October than in all the rest of 2013 combined, and most of them come from the last week. I've made a rule that I won't hang up a playbill in my classroom until I've written a blog entry about it. There have been times when I've found myself with either nothing or too much to say--and so I've said nothing. At any rate, I had a pile of about twenty programs on my desk at the end of the summer, so I vowed to do better this school year. So far, so good.
Usually I like to see a show at the beginning of its run so that I can recommend it to others (or warn them away from it). An Iliad played at the Guthrie originally in May and then was reprised in October. Not only did I wait until October to see it, I saw the final performance of the run. If I had come to this show earlier, I would have known to encourage my Humanities class to see it. An Iliad presents the violence of the Trojan War--and all wars--in a way that makes the audience picture and relate to it. It would be foolish to program a one-man show if the actor were not equal to the task, and Stephen Yoakam delivers a tour de force as The Poet. One of the most effecting portions of the performance came in the epic catalogue of war where Yoakam listed all wars and conflicts from the Trojan War to the present day. The emotional impact of violence, rage, and the ugliness of war and parts of human history were heightened and the audience was compelled not to let either mythology or the intervening centuries dull its horror.I would have liked to bring my students to this, and that's not always a compliment I give to plays. When do we get to hear epic poetry as told by a single poet any more?
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