Late in the first act of American Players Theatre’s terrific production of The Cure at Troy, one character turns to another and asks, “Who are you?”
In life and on stage, it can’t get more fundamental than that. And like much Greek drama, The Cure at Troy is a play of fundamentals.
Adapted by Nobel Laureate poet Seamus Heaney from Sophocles’ play Philoctetes, The Cure at Troy is a dialogue (or some would say “throwdown”) between two fundamental values. In this corner, duty to king and country, embodied by the Captain America of Athens, Odysseus (Jonathan Smoots). Bound and determined to conquer Troy, he has brought his ancient Navy Seals to an island to commandeer a magical bow and arrow (and its owner), that is said to unfailingly hit its target.
In the other corner, Philoctetes (David Daniels), one of the great embodiments of human suffering in all Western literature. Owner and master of the bow, he has nonetheless been abandoned on a remote island after being bitten by a snake—the festering wound makes him an unpleasant companion. He despises the Greeks who have left him to his shattering solitude and suffering, and is unlikely to join him in their siege of Troy.
When Heaney wrote the play in the 1980s, he had the struggles in Northern Ireland in mind. In fact, one of the play’s speeches was often quoted by those negotiating the peace there. It isn’t an anti-war play, exactly, but a play that puts suffering in your face, and then asks if the interests of warring states aren’t trumped by the simple call to help people in need. Today, there is obvious resonance with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and any situation where personal values and emotions clash with the interests of societies and nations.
In David Frank’s production at American Players Theatre, the meaning wasn’t bound by specific allusions to historical or current events, mostly due to David Daniels’ shatteringly human portrait of the wounded Philoctetes. Surrounded by gray uniforms and stoic personalities, Daniels gives his character’s emotions wild-eyed flight, unbounded by propriety or protocol. As his affection grows for Neoptolemus (Paul Hurley), the officer enlisted by Odysseus to seduce Philoctetes to give up his bow, you see his damaged humanity heal itself, even as his wound continues to send him into paroxysms of agony.
Greek drama isn’t easy to bring into the 21st century. Often, directors choose to ritualize it, as Tina Landau did in the Seattle Repertory Theatre’s production a few years ago, one of the few major productions of The Cure At Troy in America. She framed the scenes with sung chorale odes (with music by Milwaukee’s own Josh Schmidt). Here, David Frank moves in the opposite direction, embodying the chorus primarily in the talented Sarah Day, who speaks the lines with potent authority and emotional gravity. His actors deliver the lines clearly and naturally, without calling due attention to the verse. The result is a remarkable evening in which powerful abstractions take on human form, and Greek ideas and questions about humanity and society thunder into the present from their ancient times.
Photos by Zane Williams
