STORYTELLING THAT LAUNCHES A THOUSAND SHIPS
There is a moment in Court Theatre’s fourth (!) iteration of An Iliad where The Poet holds a flashlight below his chin—I immediately flashed back to memories of ghost stories told in a tent while lights were supposed to be out. The conceits of Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare’s exhilarating adaptation of Robert Fagles‘ translation are to structure the timeless tale through the oral tradition of storytelling and to reconfigure the Poet as a storyteller doomed to be immortal; an elegant way to contemporize the ancient text.
Emerging from the depths into what seems to be the antechamber of a sewer entrance, Timothy Edward Kane, after a slightly shaky opening, delivers a master class in solo performance, expertly navigating the tricky tonal shifts of the script, switching between humor, pathos, and anger, sometimes within the same sentence, without losing his grip on the audience. Those tonal shifts, while enormously effective in the first half of the play, are a liability in the second, frequently disrupting the mood—particularly during a crowd-pleasing recital of a laundry list of wars from then to now, an interpolation that hammers the theme of the play with all the subtlety of a pile driver to repeat a point that has already been beautifully established. It is the most “actorly” moment of the show and while Kane handles it with bravura, it completely destroys the carefully built momentum. Still, the spontaneous applause from the audience would indicate that I am in the minority here (all it did for me was bring to mind a dreadful Billy Joel song) so your mileage may vary.
One can’t fault the actor for problems in the script though and in the case of this production one can’t fault the actor at all. Kane is quite simply, brilliant; from his aforementioned handling of the tonal shifts to his physicality and movement—he glides across the stage with balletic grace—this is an actor at the top of his game. A solo show lives or dies based on the talent of its performer and in Kane’s capable hands, this one soars. It’s a mesmerizing performance, making this gripping, vital theatre highly recommended.
He is considerably aided by Keith Parham and Josiah Croegert’s astounding lighting design, which keeps pace with Kane every step of way, making him larger than life during the more stentorian passages and shrinking and diminishing him for the more emotional moments. Special mention must be made of the segment with a flashlight and a strategically placed spot that elevates an already frenetic piece to beautiful, terrifying chaos.
Todd Rosenthal‘s set design is serviceable and fashionably grimy. While it does nothing to enhance the play, it doesn’t detract or distract, and that’s a consolation.
It is not difficult to see why the storied Court Theatre would choose to close its 70th season with this play. With the current state of the world, it would seem especially timely, but the genius of An Iliad is that it is always timely; at any given point, somewhere in the world, the drama is being reenacted, its heroes and villains reconfigured for conflicts of different scales in nations across the globe. It’s why, more than twenty-five hundred years after it was written, it is as resonant as ever.
photos by Michael Brosilow
An Iliad
Court Theatre, 5535 South Ellis Ave.
Wed thru Fri at 7:30; Sat & Sun at 2 & 7:30
Jason Huysman (u/s The Poet) appears June 15 and 22 at 7:30
90 minutes, no intermission
ends on June 29, 2025
for tickets ($100 to $125), call 773 753 4472 or visit Court Theatre
for more shows, visit Theatre in Chicago
