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![\"BROOK](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/4321178_web1_BJ-20260615SIRAnIliadSoloPerformerRodrigoBeifuss12.jpg\")
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BROOK JONES \/ FREE PRESS<\/p>\n
Rodrigo Beilfuss as Homer in An Iliad<\/p>\n
The director calls that literary adaptation of a sweeping, romantic epic a romp, where the \u201cheroes are heroes and the villains are villainous.\u201d<\/p>\n
But whereas the Dumas classic has captured imaginations for mere centuries, The Iliad has done so for millennia, owing to its honest, brutal and timeless interrogation of \u201cthis terrible compulsion we have towards war,\u201d Brauer says.<\/p>\n
Written by Lisa Peterson and Tony-winning actor Denis O\u2019Hare amid the American invasion of Iraq in the early 2000s, An Iliad \u2014 on to July 5 at the Ruins \u2014 draws directly from its source material but makes modernistic digressions: the poet begins his remembrance in the original Greek, but quickly shifts to a contemporary, reflective English.<\/p>\n
That diversion from a pure \u201cclassical\u201d retelling is key in the playwrights\u2019 outright mission to recontextualize ancient epics to fit the vernacular of modern warfare, says Brauer. \u201cThey were interested in writing a play about war that wasn\u2019t a polemic,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a play that aims to ask questions about the cost.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels very much like a thriller when you\u2019re in it,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n
And any thriller worth its salt needs a commanding, exacting score.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t BROOK JONES \/ FREE PRESS<\/p>\n An Iliad director Christopher Brauer<\/p>\n To that end, the production has drafted multi-instrumentalist Daniel Roy, whose onstage muse wanders into the ruined city just as did the poet. \u201cWe\u2019ve treated both the poet and the muse very much as if they\u2019re street performers,\u201d says Brauer.<\/p>\n \u201cThe poet doesn\u2019t want to do this alone,\u201d says Brauer of the character\u2019s task of martial memory. \u201cSo he keeps imploring the muses. Daniel arrives on the scene as the poet\u2019s partner in the telling. Unlike in movie music, which can sometimes feel sentimental, in our case, the music creates the world and interior experience of the story.\u201d<\/p>\n Roy has an elaborate setup that includes percussion, acoustic guitar, bass and pre-recorded sequences. \u201cIt has an intensity to it,\u201d the director says.<\/p>\n As does the entire 108-minute performance, a solo endeavour that Brauer says exceeds the typical \u201ctalking-head\u201d style in favour of a more gymnastic, mobile storytelling style.<\/p>\n \u201c(Beilfuss) is Homer, the original writer of this poem, this recorder of the history of warfare, and his whole mission is to make this story feel real and immediate,\u201d Brauer says. \u201cHe wants to make it feel like it\u2019s really happening.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t BROOK JONES \/ FREE PRESS<\/p>\n Daniel Roy (left) plays an udu as SiR artistic director Rodrigo Beilfuss plays a poet.<\/p>\n When the poet recalls the dust of a settled battlefield, Beilfuss can kick at the actual stuff, and when the script refers to the ramparts and the walls, the production crew could utilize the actual built environment as a literal jumping-off point.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are lots of places to leap and do battle,\u201d says Brauer.<\/p>\n A solo show\u2019s battle scenes look a little bit different than Ben Hur or director Christopher Nolan\u2019s upcoming treatment of The Odyssey.<\/p>\n \n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n \t\t\tDish<\/p>\n Every Second Friday<\/p>\n The latest on food and drink in Winnipeg and beyond from arts writers Ben Sigurdson and Eva Wasney.<\/p>\n \t\t\tSign up for Dish<\/a><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t Brauer, along with fight director Shannon Guile, collaborated with classics scholars, including the University of Winnipeg\u2019s Conor Whately, to bring a sense of realism to the depiction of armed conflict and spear-wielding.<\/p>\n \u201cThe style of fighting that normally happens is one person versus another \u2014 Petrocles versus everybody or Achilles versus Hector,\u201d says Brauer. With An Iliad, the battle happens inside the vacuum of memory. This character is telling the story not just of the Trojan War, but war in general.<\/p>\n \u201cBut there is a struggle to remember because it\u2019s been 3,000 years, and because in the last 100 years or so we\u2019ve wanted to forget. There hasn\u2019t been an urge to invite him to tell us for a while.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t BROOK JONES \/ FREE PRESS <\/p>\n Rodrigo Beilfuss (left) and musician Daniel Roy perform in An Iliad, Shakespeare in the Ruins\u2019 second summer production, which opens today.<\/p>\n \u201cWe haven\u2019t focused on that PTSD angle, but it\u2019s printed on the poet throughout the show,\u201d Brauer adds. \u201cIt\u2019s more about the human habit of forgetting, because to remember is to ask why we keep doing this.\u201d<\/p>\n winnipegfreepress.com\/benwaldman<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t Ben Waldman Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University\u2019s (now Toronto Metropolitan University\u2019s) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben<\/a>.<\/p>\n Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print \u2014 part of the Free Press\u2018s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press\u2019s history and mandate<\/a>, and learn how our newsroom operates<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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