Curtains Up Winnipeg

The Iliad is an old story, one of the oldest still in circulation in fact. At a ground level, it’s the story of the Trojan War in which the Greeks fought the Trojans outside the walls of Troy. Also, as this production mentions, it’s the story of two brave warriors: Achilles the Greek and Hector the Trojan. In this rendition, performed by Shakespeare in the Ruins Artistic Director Rodrigo Beilfuss, the question becomes how to make relevant this story which has been told so many times before. Accompanied by a soundscape by local Saint Boniface musician Daniel Roy, the two etch out a rendition of the story which is both simple and dramatic. Unlike As You Like It, the show takes place exclusively in the ruins themselves and doesn’t ask the audience to walk. That’s right, no lugging your sweater and your beer and your water bottle and your Concise Notes summarizing the Iliad which you definitely weren’t consulting before the show…

The premise is simple: a poet comes to town who has been wandering telling the story of the Iliad for a long, long time. We come to understand that this may be the one story he knows, his one trick, his livelihood over these many years. He is dressed as though he was the veteran of many wars, worn down by what he’s seen, maybe a little traumatized… or just someone who carries their possessions on the back. The blocking does a mesmerizing job is taking over the space of the ruins in a way that leads us to understand that entertaining in a new place every night is his job and he’s good at it. We are treated to a performance where the Poet often engages us as a fragile human directly in between narrations in the tradition of oral storytellers. At the same time, the part I loved the most was when you saw the complexities in the relationship between storyteller and story. When the teller commented or reacted to parts of the standard text. The characterizations of different characters with just simple facial movements was absolutely glorious.

In this production, the Iliad stands as the ultimate symbol of a story that venerates and glorifies war. By bending chronology, the show draws parallels between this and other more contemporary wars. There are comparisons made between ancient and modern contexts intermittently, sometimes more successfully than others. With diction that would make a drama teacher cry, Beilfuss is compelling as an unreliable narrator who clearly knows more about the story than he is prepared to reveal to us. The ambiguity of who he was to the story worked well in that it kept the audience trying to figure out how and why this Poet has come to tell this story over and over again like a litany, a sacred duty. The performance starts off feeling a little uncomfortable, while quickly moving into a passionate, fluid rendition which shows us how deeply the Poet still loves this story. The issue is not with the quality of the story, then, but what it represents. The question becomes: is it possible to keep telling a problematic story like the Iliad without simultaneously also glorifying the more horrific realities of war? This tension is where the production most sang.

One person shows are never easy, as can be testified by any person who has done any fringing. This show definitely struggled with some of the usual struggles of the one person show: slightly too long warming up, a lot of time with one actor, a struggle keep the tension feeling dynamic, difficulty breaking up the time so it feels vivid and active as opposed to stretching out. That said, this is a case where I feel strongly that I mostly hold the script accountable for the parts I didn’t love. It just wasn’t broken up enough and it needed some variations in rhythm in the second half. The moments where Poet’s fallible human-ness came out were delightful, such as drinking Athena-tequila and stretching out in the space. I feel like we could have used more of those to break up the Message, especially in the second half. What makes the Iliad compelling is the balance between human needs and big value concepts like Honour and Glory. I wanted more of the human part in the poet’s story to ground these big ideas.

I also have to call attention to the female representation, or lack there of. Andromache’s identity is centred around her concern for her husband, Hector. Fine, I could let that go. Presenting Helen as a bimbo who would like to seduce her husband’s brother when he’s already married… there was no excuse for an image that shallow. I’m not indignant as a feminist, I’m indignant because it’s bad storytelling. Once again, the ones I hold responsible here are the writers.

All that said, this is still a really cohesive show. The performance(s) are stellar. The costumes and sets are completely appropriate and do a great job of telling the story of weariness. It was also perfectly staged within the ruins to allow for movement and provide a beautiful context for telling this age old story. It was a solid, well crafted show that is well put together and worth seeing. If it got remounted, I would just suggest some tweaking of the script might be in order to maximize what could be an absolutely exalted show.