The dramas of Sophocles are part of the glory that was Greece, but rarely in this day and age are they part of the theater that is ours.
Once in a while, a director like Joanne Akalaitis will strike gold in a contemporary interpretation, but most of the time, for all the lip service given them as the fountain of Western drama, the Greek dramas remain safely on the library shelf.
However, Russell Vandenbroucke, a man of the theater with deep literary leanings, has boldly ventured where few others dare to tread.
He has commissioned from playwright Amlin Gray a new edition of Sophocles’ “Philoctetes,” and under the title of “The Wound and the Bow,” he is staging it for his last production as artistic director of Northlight Theatre.
Gray’s text is not as rich in imagery as “The Cure at Troy,” Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney’s version of the same play, but it is a strong, stageworthy presentation.
In clear, simple terms, it tells the story of Philoctetes, the great warrior who, though suffering terribly from a festering wound, nonetheless possesses an unconquerable weapon, a bow that always aims its arrows dead on target.
The Greeks, needing Philoctetes’ bow to win the Trojan War, try to lure him from his island of exile, and to do so, the opportunistic Odysseus enlists the idealistic young Neptolemus, son of the slain Achilles, who is to deceive the old man into thinking he is being rescued and returned home.
The moral dilemma the play presents is quickly resolved by a voice from the gods, which abruptly persuades Philoctetes to sail to Troy, join the fight and fulfill his destiny.
With the aid of movement director Marianne Kim, Vandenbroucke has tried to give the drama a highly stylized presentation, using song, dance and percussive musical accompaniment to summon up a ritualistic atmosphere.
A prologue and an epilogue in Greek also frame the play’s action.
Michael Philippi’s lighting and scenery, a skull cave set on Northlight’s thrust stage, are the most successful design ele- ments.
Nan Zabriskie’s brief ancient warrior costumes, however, don’t do much for the actors, especially for the somewhat spindly Jon Mozes as Neptolemus, and with his long-haired wig and beard, David Studwell, as Philoctetes, looks like he has wandered in from a neighboring production of “Rip Van Winkle.”
With the exception of Mozes, whose delivery is more Skokie than Athens, the principals (especially David Darlow’s Odysseus) and the three-man chorus speak Gray’s lines intelligibly and forcefully.
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“The Wound and the Bow”
When: Through June 7
Where: Northlight Theatre, 9501 N. Skokie Blvd., Skokie
Phone: 847-673-6300
