**** (4 stars)
” extraordinarily difficult piece to watch “
An extraordinarily difficult piece to watch – I can’t begin to imagine what it must be like to perform it, to go over and over the horrors we visit in passing, to relive them every evening and to live with them every day, knowing they have to be repeated the next night.
Thetis, mother of Achilles, the renowned Greek warrior, lover of Patroclus and major player in the Trojan war. Zeus, Athena, Hera, Aphrodite, Paris, Hector, Agamemnon, Menelaus – the list of names is endless and familiar to anyone who’s ever read any of the great Greek stories. All these and many more characters are brought vividly to life as we watch, horrified and powerless, as the gods of Olympus play with the lives of men, and in their own petty jealousies and rivalries cause swathes of violence and destruction to sweep across the earth.
The story starts slowly, and in the middle: it works outwards, forwards and backwards through the names and the stories – everything is interlinked, and everything ends in death. Wars are fought, men, women, and children slaughtered in the pursuit of one individual’s lust for revenge or pursuit of a desired object. Is this right? Is this fair? Is this just?
It’s not hard to see, so very clearly, the parallels with our own world today, where millions suffer because of the desires or even the whims of a few powerful men [and isn’t it nearly always men?]. At the end of this piece Paola Balbi and Davide Bardi remember friends of theirs, storytellers, currently experiencing untold hardship and living in fear in parts of the world where today one group of people is trying to wipe another group off the face of the earth.
There’s some very powerful storytelling here – mixed, thank goodness, with a lot of wit and humour, some very earthy reality and a near-constant tapping/drumming/thunderingly percussive and at times haunting accompaniment.
What comes over to me, loud and clear through it all, is the sheer stupidity of war, which doesn’t solve any problems but adds to them while furnishing the reason for the next war, and the next, and the next…
Iliad: The song of Thetis, The Fringe, Scottish Storytelling Centre, Venue 30, Runs until 18th August for more information go to: Iliad: The Song of Thetis | Edinburgh Festival Fringe
ScotsGay Arts 