AN ILIAD
AN ILIAD, Sydney Theatre Company at Wharf 1, 17 April-21 June 2026. Photography by Daniel Boud
This Iliad – An Iliad – has been making its way through upmarket theatres across the United States since 2012 to generally ecstatic responses. (The New York Times found it more meh than marvellous.) The adaptation of Homer’s Iliad is by actor Denis O’Hare and his wife, director Lisa Peterson, from a translation by fabled academic Robert Fagles. It has been a successful theatre vehicle for O’Hare ever since, and the “an” is a reminder that it’s by far not the only Iliad in existence.
Now, with miserably serendipitous timing, the distilled ancient epic of endless, pointless war opens in Sydney as the Israeli Defence Force attacked and killed members of Lebanon’s ambulance service. As we sat in a theatre listening to tales of human savagery, they were racing to help others already targeted and dying. In all, three teams of medics were successively hit while we were doing 100 minutes, no interval.
Clichéd parallels are not required to highlight how An Iliad may be of today, although written some 3000 years ago, and maybe by Homer or not. What’s relevant to the Wharf 2026 is the team gathered to stage the play. First among equals is director Damien Ryan, who, in his opening night speech, used the phrase “vivid neutrality” to describe the set design (by Charles Davis). However, Ryan had also put his finger on the dramatic core.
If any actor can demonstrate vivid neutrality, it’s David Wenham, whose performance as The Poet is suffused with his laconic style and laid-back charm. At the same time, he brings quiet intensity and warmth to the telling of the tale and connection with the audience. The variation in colour and tone that he brings to the words makes the savagery, the wars, the revenge, the murders, and the relentless intent of both sides into fascinating focus and absorption, instead of merely unbearable.
In this quest, where Ryan’s subtle intelligence is often only evident looking back, Wenham is supported in a breathtaking partnership with musician, singer and composer Helen Svoboda. Born in Finland, based in Melbourne, Svoboda brings living mystery, excitement and heat to bolster Wenham’s sometimes whimsical approach. Almost as much a character is the double bass with whom Svoboda interacts vocally through her abstract, ethereal music. The instrument is, by turns, bowed, plucked, and percussive. The result – as when Svoboda’s electronically enhanced vocals suggest the grief of suddenly widowed women – is electrifying.
Because of the all-pervasive darkness, the audience is drawn into the out-of-time universe that reaches back to the Bronze Age and to Teheran. (Wenham hypnotically recites a list of the wars from then to now. It’s so appalling it verges on comical.) Davis’s industrial space, with a roller door and little else, is a blank canvas for the imagination, yet is made material with a bit of sand, a few rocks, and other stuff. As well, there’s The Poet’s handcart of possessions, which might have been left over from Mother Courage. (That was the 17th-century Thirty Years War, of course.)
The cavernous no-place is lit by Alexander Berlage with one of his most effective of many effective designs. Shafts and shapes of light lie or creep across black floor and walls. Dense shadows are in contrast to stark white fluoro and soft gold lamps. All is enhanced by the sound design of voices and effects, electronic and natural by Brady Watkins, immaculately choreographed by sound operators Madalyn Henly and David Trumpmanis. Meanwhile, the moments of sleight of hand are so sneaky you may not realise you’ve been gulled until you find the credits: “illusions and magic consultant, Adam Mada; illusions and magic associate: Bruce Glen.”
An Iliad actually is a night of illusion and magic, because the mix of poetry and violence is not only volatile but also foreign to our Insta insensibilities. Therefore, the invisible but crucial contributions from Greek language consultant Deborah Galanos and voice and text director Charmian Gradwell are central. Although some in the opening night audience seemed to find quite a lot to giggle at (perhaps they were still back with Diver Dan?), An Iliad is serious, humane and deeply moving theatre and another gold star for Mitchell Butel in pursuit of STC’s resurgence.
