Slimmed-down 'Iliad' preserves epic's energy

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

Louie Hung, left, is Achilles and Herman "Junior" Tesoro is Patroclus in "Dis/Troy," which opens Saturday at the Tenney Theatre. Brad Goda 'Dis/Troy' A play by Yokanaan Kearns, adapted from Homer's "The Iliad" and produced by the Honolulu Theatre for Youth 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. tomorrow; March 6, 13 and 20 Tenney Theatre, Queen Emma Square $12 general, $6 youths (18 and younger) and seniors (60-plus) 839-9885, htyweb.org What's in a name? In adapting "The Iliad" for the Honolulu Theatre for Youth, playwright Yokanaan Kearns originally was going to title his work "Troy Story." But it sounded too much like Disney/Pixar's "Toy Story." Besides, Zeke, his son, who was 8 at the time (9 now), didn't like it "and he has veto power on all my titles." Zeke figured "Dis/Troy," like in dissing somebody, was better. Dad agreed. "There's a pun at play, too, like 'to destroy Troy,' " said Kearns.

As part of a Honolulu Theatre for Youth commission, Kearns took Homer's fabled "The Iliad" and limited battle scenes involving thousands to fights between two or sometimes three characters. He hung his tale, like Homer's, on a young warrior's journey of becoming a man and dealing with rage.

He called his abridged version "Dis/Troy," which HTY is staging for school audiences this month and next. World-premiere public performances begin this weekend.

But don't expect pidgin; "Dis/Troy" may imply it's delivered in the local lingo, but it's not, said Kearns.

"I think it's kind of colloquial, standard English, especially among the warriors," he said. "'The Iliad' was easy to adapt, because Homer really worked out the plot. It's the (original) language that usually gets in the way of acceptability; the story is a powerful one, of a person's growing awareness in life."

Under the auspices of HTY, a nationally respected children's theater group, the play grapples with issues of anger, jealousy and maturity as the nearly immortal Achilles battles with his pride and fate while he addresses his responsibilities.

The play was commissioned by Mark Lutwak, HTY executive director, as part of an ongoing mission to give Island youths an easy entry-level experience into classic literature.

"When we can preserve the spirit of the classics but find a style that will touch today's teens, we've succeeded in our mission," said Lutwak.

So how do you "do" an epic on a much smaller scale, partly governed by the fact that HTY is bus-and-trucking this show (well, airplanes, too, for Neighbor Islands)? Portability was an issue, since actors roll out their own sets and pack their own costumes in a savvy brand of "suitcase theater."

The players include Reb Beau Allen, Janice Terukina, Louie Hung and Herman "Junior" Tesoro.

"What you do, of course, is put aside the element of an epic, which you know you're not doing because, well, you don't have Brad Pitt (playing Achilles), as he will in a movie that comes out later, and you don't have more than two hours of CGI (computer generated imaging) to tell the story," said Kearns, a Hawai'i Pacific University classics professor and playwright.

"The cool thing about 'The Iliad,' " he said, "is how Achilles learns how to be a man, from a very unlikely source. And what teenager, like Achilles, cannot identify with the problem of not getting what he wants, and thus, dealing with that anger?"

Louie Hung, who plays Achilles, said youths have been picking up on the theme of rage management in the cast's three weeks' tour of the Neighbor Islands earlier this month.

"I think they get the message. They ask, in our Q&A session after each performance, if he went over the limit when his friend dies; they think he might have gone crazy."

Period costumes give the show its Greek feel but the play has been accessible, even acceptable, for the school audiences, said Hung.

Kearns was tapped by HTY's Lutwak to write this youth-aimed product with academic implications after the 2001 premiere of Kearns' "Pidg Latin."

"Mark says let's keep working together, let's have a project theater, and when he said let's do 'The Iliad,' I said great," said Kearns.

In revisiting "The Iliad," Kearns said he took Homer's cue "to amp up the humor in the world of gods, showing how the gods misbehave. Homer goes back and forth, from the world of the gods to the human world, and it's all a life-and-death struggle, all about honor.

"The humor is in the fact that humans take gods seriously, but gods don't take gods seriously, so you have the queen of the gods, Hera, wearing a revealing outfit, seducing husband Zeus so she can knock him out and go out and mess things up in the human world."

He also sanctioned cross-dressing of the gods (played by actors of the opposite sex).

Kearns had no doubt about doing "The Iliad" over "The Odyssey." "There are lots of 'Odyssey' adaptations out there, because it's an adventure story with monsters and travels and heroes. But there are no good 'Iliads' out there, and this fills a void."

The production opened "out of town," at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in June 2002, featured at the prestigious biennial New Visions/New Voices festival, where works in progress are tweaked with live readings by professional actors.

Interest in "Dis/Troy" among other theater groups elsewhere is mounting, said Lutwak. "I am particularly excited (that) 'Dis/Troy' has already captured the attention of some of the most prestigious theater organizations in the nation," he said.

Reach Wayne Harada at wharada@honoluluadvertiser.com, 525-8067 or fax 525-8055.