“The Iliad is tense and intriguing, with moments of great
tragedy and breath-taking humility. Everything we have come to expect of
the great myths.” Simon Armitage
The Royal Exchange is hosting the world premier of Simon Armitage's The Last Days of Troy. The play completes Homer’s tale, with Simon Armitage’s
dramatisation bringing the war to a brutal conclusion.
Armitage is a wonderful poet and now he is also a translator and adaptor of some of the most important epics: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Homer's Odyssey and The Death of King Arthur. The Last Days of Troy follows in this style with a wonderful retelling of the last days of the Trojan War.
In his introduction to The Last Days of Troy Armitage says "my aim in this dramatisation has been to span those two ancient poems (Homer's Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid), and present in theatrical form a story that follows the Trojan War through to its bitter end." As with his previous works Armitage succeeds in his aim and delivers a convincing and spectacular piece if theatre.
The story opens at a stalemate between the warring armies and after a 10 year siege, the Greeks are battle weary and demoralised. Helen of Troy, the wife of the King of Sparta in Greek mythology, was abducted by Paris and is living with him as his concubine or wife, depending on your view of the world. Helen's abduction by lover Paris is said to be the cause of the bloody Trojan War. There is a really powerful moment in the play when Helen declaims:
Helen of Greece, Helen of Troy,
Married a man then married a boy,
The boy took her home, the man chased after,
All the way from stony Sparta...
Oh is it the eyes and is it the lips...
Or is it the thighs and is it the hips
That launched a thousand angry ships
And fired a million fiery darts
That pierced a hundred thousand hearts
And left a hundred thousand dead
And dyed the blue Aegean red
From Troy to Sparta,
All the way over the wind-blown water.
Helen of Joy, Helen of Slaughter.
She says that she hasn't heard the last line of the verse before and Priam says 'the local poets have never been able to resist a convenient rhyme, no matter how crude.' How true! It made me think of some of the rhymes which surrounded Wallis Simpson, another figure of public loathing and scorn, adored by the head of state!
Lily Cole was a brilliant Helen. She glided elegantly around the stage and was totally convincing. She was the play's golden character although it was Andromache, Zeus and Hera who, for me, were the outstanding actors and brought the action to life.
Armitage is a wonderful poet and now he is also a translator and adaptor of some of the most important epics: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Homer's Odyssey and The Death of King Arthur. The Last Days of Troy follows in this style with a wonderful retelling of the last days of the Trojan War.
In his introduction to The Last Days of Troy Armitage says "my aim in this dramatisation has been to span those two ancient poems (Homer's Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid), and present in theatrical form a story that follows the Trojan War through to its bitter end." As with his previous works Armitage succeeds in his aim and delivers a convincing and spectacular piece if theatre.
The story opens at a stalemate between the warring armies and after a 10 year siege, the Greeks are battle weary and demoralised. Helen of Troy, the wife of the King of Sparta in Greek mythology, was abducted by Paris and is living with him as his concubine or wife, depending on your view of the world. Helen's abduction by lover Paris is said to be the cause of the bloody Trojan War. There is a really powerful moment in the play when Helen declaims:
Helen of Greece, Helen of Troy,
Married a man then married a boy,
The boy took her home, the man chased after,
All the way from stony Sparta...
Oh is it the eyes and is it the lips...
Or is it the thighs and is it the hips
That launched a thousand angry ships
And fired a million fiery darts
That pierced a hundred thousand hearts
And left a hundred thousand dead
And dyed the blue Aegean red
From Troy to Sparta,
All the way over the wind-blown water.
Helen of Joy, Helen of Slaughter.
She says that she hasn't heard the last line of the verse before and Priam says 'the local poets have never been able to resist a convenient rhyme, no matter how crude.' How true! It made me think of some of the rhymes which surrounded Wallis Simpson, another figure of public loathing and scorn, adored by the head of state!
Lily Cole was a brilliant Helen. She glided elegantly around the stage and was totally convincing. She was the play's golden character although it was Andromache, Zeus and Hera who, for me, were the outstanding actors and brought the action to life.
Is it a coincidence that the play was commissioned to be performed in 2014, a hundred years since the start of the First World War? Is Armitage encouraging us to consider how we are still locked in the same cycles of conflict and revenge,
of east versus west, and the same mixture of pride, lies and
self-deception that fed the Trojan War?
Whatever the deeper significance of the play, we loved it , and emerged feeling slightly dazed into the bright Manchester sunlight. A triumph!
but
he is also an adaptor and translator of some of our most important
epics, such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Death of King Arthur
and Homer's Odyssey. - See more at:
http://www.faber.co.uk/catalog/the-last-days-of-troy/9780571315093#sthash.s18GkVML.dpuf
ut
he is also an adaptor and translator of some of our most important
epics, such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Death of King Arthur
and Homer's Odyssey. - See more at:
http://www.faber.co.uk/catalog/the-last-days-of-troy/9780571315093#sthash.s18GkVML.dpuf
but
he is also an adaptor and translator of some of our most important
epics, such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Death of King Arthur
and Homer's Odyssey. - See more at:
http://www.faber.co.uk/catalog/the-last-days-of-troy/9780571315093#sthash.s18GkVML.dpuf
but
he is also an adaptor and translator of some of our most important
epics, such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Death of King Arthur
and Homer's Odyssey. - See more at:
http://www.faber.co.uk/catalog/the-last-days-of-troy/9780571315093#sthash.s18GkVML.dpuf
but
he is also an adaptor and translator of some of our most important
epics, such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Death of King Arthur
and Homer's Odyssey. - See more at:
http://www.faber.co.uk/catalog/the-last-days-of-troy/9780571315093#sthash.s18GkVML.dpuf
but
he is also an adaptor and translator of some of our most important
epics, such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Death of King Arthur
and Homer's Odyssey. - See more at:
http://www.faber.co.uk/catalog/the-last-days-of-troy/9780571315093#sthash.s18GkVML.dpuf
but
he is also an adaptor and translator of some of our most important
epics, such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Death of King Arthur
and Homer's Odyssey. - See more at:
http://www.faber.co.uk/catalog/the-last-days-of-troy/9780571315093#sthash.s18GkVML.dpufThe language is lyrical, poetic and passionate, expertly capturing
the high emotion and drama of war, sex, power and bloodlust, central
themes running through the bloody battle between the Greeks and Trojans.
Whatever the deeper significance of the play, we loved it , and emerged feeling slightly dazed into the bright Manchester sunlight. A triumph!