Open Rehearsal: The Court Theatre Blog
October 4, 2011
An Iliad Begins…
“I’m nobody! Who are you?/Are you nobody, too?”
I don’t know why, but today’s read-through after the meet and greet for An Iliad made me think of this Emily Dickinson poem. As a personal aside, I have an undying love for Emily Dickinson and studied her work somewhat fanatically during college. One of the reoccurring themes in her poetry that always fascinated me was the idea that “nothing” was just as powerful as “everything”; that the concept of zero and the concept of infinity could be deemed equals in that they are both unattainable.
As I listened to the text of An Iliad read aloud today, I felt the opposition between these two polarities very strongly. Everything, Nothing. God, Mortal. Creation, Destruction. It’s as uncomfortable as it is enthralling. How can one man tell the story of thousands of men? How can one actor convey the entirety of the most famous epic poem in Western literature? How can this unidentified entity simply called “The Poet” embody this massive, unruly deluge of emotions and images that is The Iliad?
I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see what the answer is.
Actor Timothy Edward Kane as The Poet
1 Response to An Iliad Begins…
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I saw “An Iliad” at Court last fall and thought it was fantastic. Is there somewhere I can purchase the script/text? I would love to read this slowly. An Internet search yielded nada. Thank you - Dan
By Dan on April 16, 2012 at 11:16 pm