The Illiad – Out Loud

Celebrated Greek Australian actor William Zappa has been fashioning this nine hour marathon storytelling event for years.

He’s ploughed through multiple translations of Homer’s ancient epic poem about the Trojan War, the oldest surviving work of Western  literature, and delivers it in three three-hour parts with just four actors.

Zappa, Heather Mitchell, Socratis Otto and Blazey Best share the narration and constantly swap roles, pacing a circle of sand, scripts in hand and backed by percussionist Michael Askill and Hamed Sadeghi on oud. .  It’s compelling storytelling and speaks to us in the  same oral tradition that first relayed this mighty yarn.  

The genius is in Zappa’s gently rhythmic, occasionally vernacular adaptation, its descriptions of nature and landscape, the sharp eye for human and seemingly irrelevant detail and mad tangential metaphors and, most especially, Zappa’s ear for humour and ironies.

The growing camaraderie between performers and audience is a delight to share.  With the actors, all with glasses and always reading, all that’s missing, from the true oral tradition, is the power of eyeball to eyeball storytelling.

But what a spectacular and brutal war, now in its tenth and final year, is described!  On one side, the famed Trojans led by Priam, wife Hecuba, and his sons, the heroic Hector and waspish Paris, whose stealing of Helen started it all. And for the Greeks, Agamemnon, Ajax, Old Nestor and Achilles who’s grudge fatefully keeps him from the battlefield.

And a key delight are the dozen Gods of Olympus who look on and scheme for their favourite side, despite the perhaps not all mighty Zeus who’s for the Trojans.

Zappa helpfully bookmarks each new section. I saw just the second part, Books 6 to 14. My loss!

Martin Portus

Photographer: Lisa Tomasetti