Hans Altwies in An Iliad. Photo by Chris Bennion.

In 2007, Boston psychiatrist Jonathan Shay won a MacArthur fellowship for his work explicating Homer’s Iliad in terms of a combat veteran’s post-traumatic stress disorder. Titled Achilles in Vietnam, his book explored the character of Achilles as warped and eroded by an extended military campaign.

It’s a brilliant tour-de-force, unveiling an Iliad you’ve likely never seen before. Readers have to wonder, given the regard in which Achilles is held, what his problem is. He’s touchy, sulky, a hero who won’t fight. Shay takes you through what nine years of military service entails: arbitrary orders from commanding officers, the randomness of death, loss of brothers in arms, and the wear of living in tents, out in the weather, away from home.

He contrasts The Iliad with Vietnam’s endless bitching about REMFs, the steady degradation of morale, how units kept track of who got sent out on patrol, the ethical breakdowns that came from small bands of men operating at a survival level. Suddenly, Achilles and Agamemnon barking at each other over who gets the war “prize” Briseis comes into focus.

In Shay’s telling, the personality torched by PTSD is the drama of The Iliad–the fiery fall of Troy is that destruction writ large, but war’s cancer has already eaten into the head and heart of almost everyone involved. Return to The Iliad after that, and you pick your head up from the book as if you’ve been looking for hours into a reflecting pool, black with blood and glistenng with bone. When you read in Robert Fagles’ translation:

With that, just as Dolon reached up for his chin
to cling with a frantic hand and beg for life,
Diomedes struck him square across the neck–
a flashing hack of the sword–both tendons snapped
and the shrieking head went tumbling in the dust.

…you know the visual acuity comes from battle stress. How many years later did Greeks wake up in a sweat, dreaming bits of The Iliad?

At the world premiere of An Iliad at the Seattle Rep (through May 16), I got the impression that creators Denis O’Hare and Lisa Peterson took the opposite tack. Where Shay draws you deeper into the text, they ceaselessly comment on it, tell you how relevant this next bit is, share a bit of research they uncovered, and in the process talk over most of what you came to hear.

The show opens on a cluttered backstage–ladder, rolling mop bucket–with Hans Altwies as The Poet, looking like he just shipped in from a Greek Death of a Salesman. He spends the next fifteen minutes or so preparing you for the play–it’s old, it has funny words, it talks about gods and people you don’t know. Why, it takes place in a strange land.

He’s a mix between your “fun” teacher from high school, the one who talked to you casually, and a drunk vet. He’s not, as persuasively, a poet or a few-thousand-year-old man. The character makes no sense really–a few times I thought Altwies was making do by playing a younger William Hurt: woundedness and diction.

Fact: The Poet explains how Greeks came from all over to attack Troy, and recites a list of American towns, so we will know what it was like. They were just boys! Have you been to Troy? If not, don’t worry, he’ll Rick Steves you through the town, pointing things out. It became aggravating, as if the play was written with the disoriented people on a Jay Leno street question segment in mind.

When the creators have The Poet break off from reciting the actual Iliad–it felt like fifty-fifty Denis O’Hare/Lisa Peterson and Fagles translation–to admonish himself not to get caught up in the thrill of battle, I looked around the theatre. No one here was in fatigues. But we were still getting a lesson: War…wait for it…is bad. The warlike subscribers to the Rep took it well, I thought.

Garry Wills, who’s a credible source, once said: “Robert Fagles is the best living translator of ancient Greek drama, lyric poetry, and epic into modern English.” O’Hare and Peterson cut the story down so that it’s just Achilles v. Hector, and then they further excerpt Fagles. Best living translator? Sure, but maybe you’d rather hear something more relatable. Did you know Greeks worshiped gods named Zeus and Hera? What was that about?

It was tantalizing hearing Altwies recite the work–knowing any second he’d stop, and “connect” with us via a little wry comment that undermined his poetic elevation. In little flashes, The Iliad appeared, and it was stunning. Scott Zielinsky’s light design threw huge shadows up on the wall, or narrowed down to a pit of darkness. Paul Prendergast’s sound and music infiltrated the stage so stealthily you weren’t sure if you were imagining that martial snare drum, then boomed with thunder. Altwies sank his teeth into lines, stepping from killer to victim, and even trickier, letting you see The Poet acting this and that role.

That’s what I’m taking with me, the poetry. This play, I imagine, will find its home where its didactic bent would seem to take it: high schools, where the fact that The Poet says “Fuck” will create a real stir. (It’s recommended for ages 12 and above.) Should you go see it? Altwies is hard to take your eyes off of, for the full 90 minutes. And in this case, the less you know about The Iliad going in, the better.