Open Rehearsal: The Court Theatre Blog
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October 28, 2011
A Story for the Ages
Apologies for the belated blog post, but both the blog and myself are afflicted with the plague that is haunting Court Theatre’s administrative offices and were unable to be our usual pithy selves yesterday. Please accept this article which was originally published by in the Seattle Repertory Theatre Magazine as my blog-offering for today.
A Story for the Ages: An Iliad director Lisa Peterson shares why now is the best time to revisit the Trojan War
Originally Published in Seattle Repertory Theatre Magazine
By Ian Chant
In books, on film, and now on the stage, the story of the Trojan War has been experiencing a renaissance in recent years. But what is it about a war that occurred thousands of years ago that remains so resonant today? An Iliad director Lisa Peterson supposes that there’s never really a wrong time to take a new look at the world’s oldest war story. “Somewhere in the world, people are always at war,” says Peterson.
However, some times are more right than others to revisit the infamous conflict—particularly as it’s told through Homer’s classic tale, The Iliad. “This particular moment, I think, is unique,” Peterson says. “The Iliad begins nine years into a war that may have lost its underlying meaning.” It’s a situation that mirrors what many see in the current American military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the midst of the second Iraq war, Peterson found her own interest in dramatic responses to war sparked anew. As she was researching the topic and discussing it with colleagues, a friend made the argument that The Iliad was not a poem but a dramatic work. “It was a remnant of the oral tradition, it was an out-loud story; it was never intended to be something that you just read on paper. And I was really interested in that,” says Peterson. “I had studied The Iliad in college, but… I had never thought of it as a play, and I don’t think most people do.”
Peterson was also intrigued by the opportunity to put a unique theatrical spin on a literary classic. After taking a long hiatus from helming the adaptations that marked her early career as a director, she was eager to return to adapting work, though not in a traditional manner. “I wanted to work on something as an adapter, and I was really interested in working directly with an actor instead of with a writer,” Peterson says. “I was interested in the idea of Homer as a traveling storyteller, as opposed to someone who sits and writes, and so it made more sense to go to an actor friend.”
Peterson began collaborating on the work with friend and performer Denis O’Hare, initiating a multi-year process. Last spring, An Iliad premiered at Seattle Rep. While their original idea was an improvisational piece that would change slightly with every performance, “It did end up getting written down and codified…and now it is a script, but we are still trying to capture that sensation that he’s making it up on the spot,” Peterson says. “We’re trying to create the kind of feeling that might have been in the room thousands of years ago when Homer was telling the story.”
Instilling that sense of awe at the spoken word in a modern audience is no small order. Peterson and O’Hare’s adaptation emphasizes the wide-ranging appeal of the tale and of storytelling, making An Iliad a bridge of sorts between the ancient and the modern. “We are imagining that our poet…has been around for millennia. He was there during the war, and he is doomed to walk the earth and tell his story. And over the years, he has adapted, always, to be wherever he happens to be.”
As the development process on An Iliad moves ahead, the original continues to surprise Peterson. “Almost every day I find something…that I feel like I’ve never read,” Peterson says. But not every surprise can be brought to the stage. In crafting a 90-minute one-person show from an epic poem, choosing what aspects of the story to explore can be difficult. Ultimately, An Iliad focuses on exploring the source material’s meditations on the nature of war. “We dug until we found the core of the story,” Peterson says, “and for us that core is the conflict between two great warriors, Hector and Achilles.”
October 25, 2011
An iterative Iliad
There have been three previous productions of Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare’s An Iliad. The world premiere was in Seattle Repertory Theatre’s 09/10 season with subsequent productions at Portland Center Stage and McCarter Theatre. Since I find these things fascinating, I thought I would share some of the artwork and production photos from these previous productions:
Seattle Repertory Theatre
April 19th- May 16th, 2010
Directed by Lisa Peterson
Featuring actor Hans Altwies as “The Poet”
Strangely, the webpage for An Iliad seems not to be working on the Seattle Rep site, so I could only find this itty bitty version of their artwork:
Porland Center Stage
September 28th-November 21st, 2010
Directed by Penny Metropulos
Featuring actor Joseph Graves as “The Poet”
McCarter Theatre
October 19th-Nov 7th, 2010
Directed by Lisa Peterson
Featuring actor Stephen Spinella as “The Poet”
We’ve already got our artwork set—can’t wait to see our production photos!
October 20, 2011
The Homeric Question
Best question I’ve gotten so far about An Iliad:
“So…wait…is it a guy standing on stage speaking the text of The Iliad or what?”
(Although the answer is most definitely NO, it should be noted that Court is hosting a “Homerathon” event in conjunction with University of Chicago’s Classical Entertainment Society where the entertainment will be just that: a person (actually MANY people) standing on stage speaking the text of The Iliad. But I digress…that is a subject for another blog post.)
Anyway, this question has made me realize that perhaps I’ve been a little too mysterious in my past blog posts regarding exactly what An Iliad is all about. So! Here it is folks. An Iliad exposé just for you!
1) Where did this show come from—in 50 words or less?
It went something like this: The US is at war. Lisa Peterson wants to adapt a play about war. She teams up with actor Denis O’Hare. They decide to adapt Western Civilization’s ultimate war story, Homer’s Iliad. They create a unique adaptation process. They read a section of The Iliad. Denis improvs what they’ve just read. Lisa records it. They repeat this process many times. An Iliad is born.
2) What is this show about?
War. The Trojan War. The timelessness of war. The glory of war. The horror of war. The Greeks at war. The Trojans at war. Achilles at war. Hector at war. Families at war. Civilizations at war. The gods at war. The mortals at war. And, of course, all of the moral, psychological, and emotional repercussions .
3) So if it’s not a guy standing on stage speaking the text of The Iliad, what is it?
Well, I can’t say exactly yet because that’s what rehearsal is for, but I can tell you the following: The “guy” is called “The Poet.” The Poet tells the story on stage, it’s true, but he does so through transforming into an entire ensemble of mythological characters including Hector, Achilles, Agamemnon, Paris, Hecuba, Helen, Andromache, Patroclus, Thetis, Hermes, and Priam, to name a few. And I can say with utmost certainty that he’s not going to stand in one place while he does it. Imagine the set is a canvas and The Poet is a paintbrush. He is going to paint us this story over the ENTIRE set. And it’s a really cool set. But more on that later.
October 18, 2011
An Iliad in Rehearsal
Today was the first day back in rehearsal for An Iliad after a scheduled week-long hiatus designed to give actor Timothy Edward Kane time to learn the script and digest the ideas developed in the first week of rehearsal. So, of course, I thought i’d go check it out. I came into the rehearsal room right after Tim had finished working through half of the play’s script (no small feat to be sure). After a fairly silent, somewhat pensive five minute break, director and actor started going through the text they had covered page by page.
And my goodness it was intense. There were five extra people in the room including myself, but I felt somewhat like we had disappeared in the swirl of ideas and questions firing back and forth between Charlie and Tim. I couldn’t follow their whole conversation, but what struck me was how open-ended the questions were and how vast the ideas. Everything was explored and nothing was decided. It was like a hoard of question marks and exclamation points were accumulating in the rehearsal room, floating around and bumping into one another. Where are the muses? What are the muses? Who is The Poet? Why does he say that? Why Hector? Why Achilles? Why, why, why??? And at the climax of all these questions, with a half hour left, Tim donned a cloak, sash, and head covering, took a crouched position upstage and began intoning the first lines of the play (which just happen to be in ancient Greek).
I watched him perform the same beginning page and a half of the script about six times—each performance completely different than the former. And the questions didn’t stop. They came pouring out with the lines, they were muttered sotto voce, and they even seemed to permeate the silences.
I thought by coming to rehearsal today that I would get some answers to the questions I asked in my blog post about the first rehearsal. Little did I know, the real questions have only just begun.
October 13, 2011
Silent Joe in the Windy City
As you may or may not remember, my last post included a shout-out to the Joe Clark puppet from Spunk. A call went out soon after that post from our Director of Production for someone to claim poor Joe lest his fate lie in the bottom of a dumpster. I figured that surely someone wanted him, so I paid it no mind. However, yesterday as I was gathering all of my tabling supplies for the Spotlight on Chicago event, I found upon sauntering (yes, sauntering) into the costume shop that poor ol’ Joe Clark was still sitting there curled up pathetically in a sort of “puppet fetal position.” Our Director of Production confirmed that indeed, no one had yet claimed him. Bleeding heart that I am, I couldn’t just leave poor Joe to his dumpster-probable fate! So, I offered him a job as my events assistant and took his stoic silence to mean that he was very excited about the opportunity.
And thus, Joe Clark, accompanied me to Spotlight on Chicago today, a lovely event in the Chicago Cultural Center that showcases all of the cultural institutions of Chicago for concierges, tour guides, and the like. (As an aside, if you’ve never been to the Chicago Cultural Center, it’s high time you went. It is absolutely gorgeous (see below)).
Anyway, Joe did alright for his first event. He didn’t really pull his weight chatting people up about Court Theatre, but he was very engaging, so I’ll give him that. I do believe however that the big city overwhelmed him a bit (and the weight of carrying him overwhelmed me) so he might just be my events assistant in Hyde Park from now on. Either way, I’m proud to report that Joe Clark is no longer homeless and is gainfully employed in Court Theatre’s marketing department.
Our Assistant Director of Development for Special Events helps Joe out of the car.
The beautiful atrium of the Chicago Cultural Center.
