Iliad: The Song Of Thetis theatre review – Intense, relentless reimagination
This ambitious adaptation races through Homer’s epic, obscuring its themes in an erratic whirlwind retelling
In the wonderful, welcoming Scottish Storytelling Centre, we travel back almost 3000 years for a retelling of Homer’s epic poem The Iliad (prequel to The Odyssey). Italian performers Paola Balbi and Davide Bardi take turns acting out his classic Greek stories of mortals and men, goddesses and warriors. The night starts with a promising preamble: the duo have worked with Lebanese and Palestinian artists continuing to share stories in the midst of bitter conflicts. We sense there might be a moving parallel between the power-wielding gods on Mount Olympus and the crushing consequences of modern warmongering. Sadly, we’re wrong.
Such a dense text can either be given a $250 million budget (the Christopher Nolan approach for his Odyssey) or you can just dive into a select few of these juicy characters and timeless plots with a thoughtful guide. Instead, we get two passionate storytellers who forget to drop the exclamation marks and volume as they rattle through tangled, dense stories of slaughter, rape, shotgun marriages, high heels and foot fetish. Rich, complex themes of lust and power are lost in an indulgent, draining tirade, with too much drumming and heavy breathing, and a cringe bit where Zeus receives fellatio while playing electric guitar.
Iliad: The Song Of Thetis, Scottish Storytelling Centre, until 18 August, 8.30pm.