AN ILIAD BY LISA PETERSON AND DENIS O’HARE : POWERFUL ANTI WAR THEATRE

Production photography by Daniel Boud.

Damien Ryan, in his Director’s note, to his current production of AN ILIAD at the Sydney Theatre Company writes. “The true theatrical force of this piece lies perhaps in the respected and insistent question that the poet asks of us – ‘do you see?. That question might be the heart of the play. And might well be the entire reason for theatre.’

Ryan’s note is a good entry point to this startling, thought provoking work by American playwrights, Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare, first performed at the Seattle Repertory Theatre in 2010.

AN ILIAD sees a character known as The Poet recite to the audience Homer’s epic story Iliad whilst he walks through different battlefields and broken cities with a wagon loaded with different items, an obvious allusion to the wagon that Mother Courage drags around with her in German playwright Bertolt Brecht’s masterpiece Mother Courage and her children.

He is reciting the poem because Homer’s poem recounts the story of perhaps the world’s first war, and how it came about from a storm of rage. As he walks through war zones he points to how every war mimics, in essence, the Trojan war, and asks, can’t we human beings do better than this?!`The Poet vows that he will continue to recite the story as long as human beings continue with their stupidity, and that he will only cease when people put down their weapons of war.

The  Sydney Theatre Company were able to entice David Wenham, one of Australia’s most highly regarded actors back on to the stage after a very long hiatus and he plays the Poet. Wenham give a memorable performance.

There is more to a play than the text.  To give the play greater impact, double bass musician Helen Syoboda shares the stage with Wenham, adding her strong dramatic presence and her edgy compositions. Together, they are magic.

The cast is given a finely detailed and supportive stage world for them to work in. Damien Ryan was aided by Assistant Director Ian Michael. Charles Davis designed the set and costumes, Alexander Berlage  the lighting designer, and Brady Watkins  the sound designer.

My best description of AN ILIAD is that it was a very compelling, contemporary anti-war  play.

On the night that I went I was disappointed that as David Wenham/The Poet cited his list of wars, that the war on Gaza was listed whilst there was no mention of Hamas’s savage attack on Israelis just being young at an outdoor music festival which precipitated the Gaza. As a proud Jewish man, I found this offensive. I felt like these theatremakers were playing politics around the volatile Middle East situation and it was just so inappropriate.

Wrapping up, AN ILIAD is the kind of play that one thinks a lot about after seeing it. The late, great American folksinger Peter Singer wrote the classic song ‘Where Have All The Flowers?’, made famous by the late, great German songstress Marlene Dietrich.

The song includes this stanza,

‘Where have all the soldiers gone/Long time passing/Where have all the soldiers gone?/ Gone to graveyards everyone/When will they ever learn?/When will they ever learn?

Just look at the world today. There are currently at least one hundred conflicts taking place in the world today.  The number just increases…

Nuh! Not in my view.  Can’t even imagine it! This lesson human beings just aren’t capable of learning, let alone making peace happen.This Poet is doomed to be walking around and reciting Homer’s story for eternity.

AN ILIAD is playing at Wharf 1 Sydney Theatre Company until 21 June 2026.

http://www.sydneytheatre.com.au

Production photography by Daniel Boud.