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‘The Persians’ @ Theatre in the Square
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW. Grade: C+ 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays. 2:30 and 7 p.m. Sundays. 2:30 p.m. Sept. 19. Through Sept. 23. $18-$33. Theatre in the Square, 11 Whitlock Ave., Marietta. 770-422-8369; theatreinthesquare.com. Bottom line: A strange brew.
The young king rules the richest and most powerful nation on earth. But that is not enough. Just like his father before him, he insists on invading an enemy state, and soon “thousands upon thousands” are dead, and his own people have turned against him and his bloody war.
Uh-oh. You know what they say about history repeating itself. George W. Bush would seem to have plenty in common with Xerxes, the leader of Persia’s army, who finds himself vilified at home after failing to conquer the Greeks.
In a canny bit of programming, Theatre in the Square opens its 26th season with Aeschylus’ “The Persians,” a 2,500-year-old study of hubris, humiliation and revenge that is said to be the oldest surviving play in Western civilization.
Adapted by Ellen McLaughlin and directed by John Ammerman, “The Persians” cracks open a time capsule from an ancient culture to discover an exotic world of rituals, dreams and soothsaying. While never altogether successful, what fascinates about “The Persians” is the way the ensemble creates an eccentric vocabulary of ceremonial mannerisms, movement and speech.
As imagined here, the Persians wear exotic silks (by Joanna Schmink) and loll in vast public spaces where the sun’s glare and the desert winds are harsh. Set designer Dex Edwards creates an elemental atmosphere where time is measured from a kind of inverted hourglass of trickling, blood-red sand.
Inured to the folly of their greed and empire-building, the Persians worship a dead king (Gary Yates), a queen (Jen Harper) and the king’s heir, Xerxes (Travis Smith), as descendants of the gods. But the citizens’ self-congratulatory mood is shattered once the queen begins to have portentous dreams about their symbolic bird (an eagle, no less) and a messenger (Rich Remedios) flies in from Greece with news of the staggering defeat.
Though the acting alternates between the precious and the histrionic, some of the performers embroider golden filigree from Aeschylus’ immortal poetry.
In particular, Harper makes for a fiercly withering queen, and newcomer John Basiulis (as the general and admiral) attacks his characters with a magnificently sonorous voice. Though Ammerman smartly refrains from underlining the parallels between Persia and present-day America, it’s amusing to hear Xerxes speak in a kind of slow, Southern drawl.
Too bad, then, that “The Persians” often feels like a graduate exercise in the classics. That said, professor Ammerman and his students work at a very high level, crafting images that are as weird as they are indelible. Barren and betrayed, the grief-striken Persians express their rage by hissing and clicking at the gods — a sign, perhaps, that the day of the locusts has arrived.
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