HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — “The Iliad” is frequently described as a masculine or heroic epic containing detailed descriptions of ancient war instruments, battle tactics and a few female characters.
The ancient Greek poem, attributed to Homer, is set toward the end of the Trojan War, and has been retold on stage countless times, but the story has been heard only infrequently through the eyes of a woman, let alone as a one-woman show.
“The first character really is the storyteller herself. I play the poet who was at the Trojan War and has been at or has imagined that she has been at every war since then and so she comes into the storytelling with her perspective about what war does to us and why we fight it,” said Madison Scott, assistant professor of theater at the University of Guam.
Portraying the poet, Scott jumps in and out of characters including Hector, Achilles, Patroclus and other key figures in “The Iliad.”
“It’s incredibly demanding, it’s 90 minutes and I am the only one talking, so that’s roughly 90 pages of lines and it’s sort of a mix of dialogue or lines that the playwright has written, and it’s also text pulled directly from ‘The Iliad,’ ” she said.
The 90-minute show does not have intermissions or costume changes, instead Scott tests her abilities as an actor by transforming into the characters while on stage.
“This is really fun for actors because there’s no time to switch costumes, … this is really like an ode to the oral tradition, which is important in Micronesia and the world. The way I manage that is: there’s me, the poet, which is very close to me, she shares my physicality, she shares my voice. But when I am jumping into Achilles, I change my voice, my posture, I change which part of my body leads,” she said.
In portraying Achilles, Scott uses a deep voice, stands tall and leads with her chest. As Agamemnon, Scott transforms into a villain with a nasally voice and poor posture, while leading with the hips.
“It’s like actor Olympics just having to create different characters and making them clear throughout the story. I think the most challenging part is, as one person I am jumping inside these larger-than-life characters that have made an impression on humans for thousands of years. I have to make them human and focus on what are they doing and feeling at that moment as a human,” she said.
Thousands of years separate the time of the work’s writing and today, but the epic’s message can still be relevant, Scott said — especially now.
“I think this story is important to tell now because we are finding ourselves on the cusps of global conflict. There’s several bubbling, we have Ukraine and Russia, and the question of whether other European countries or the United States should involve itself. We have Taiwan and China, Guam’s position as a front line, … that stuff is really present in our lives right now. A story of war and what it does to people might be sort of a word of warning,” she said.
Scott will be accompanied on stage by Shannon San Nicolas, who will be playing the violin as the muse who helps the poet tell the story of the Trojan War.
“The sounds that he plays kind of flush out the world of the play and the feelings inside the characters,” said Scott, who is excited to take classical literature and put a contemporary twist on it.
“I feel very strongly about getting women’s voices, bodies and perspectives highlighted in the classics. This is a very masculine-heavy story, the script really focuses on male characters. I think having a woman tell the story kind of cracks open some new piece of it and, so that’s a reason why I want to give it a try,” she said.
There will be six performances of “The Iliad,” which will run from Sept. 22 through Sept. 24, and Sept. 29 through Oct. 1. Shows begin at 7 p.m. at the UOG Fine Arts Theater.
Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at the door.
Madison Scott, assistant professor of theater at the University of Guam, is set to star in the one-woman show “The Iliad,” which takes the classical story of the Trojan War and tells the story through the eyes of a female poet who jumps into the various characters from the Iliad.
