Troy: Mother of All Wars Lands on AUB Shores

Troy: Mother of all Wars

Crashing air raids. Images of a pop superstar. Ammunition boxes strewn across a military zone. Thus the scene was set for Troy: Mother of All Wars, this year’s spring drama production of the Fine Arts and Art History Department.

Performed on the West Hall stage May 18 to 23, Troy: Mother of All Wars was a contemporary multi-media adaptation of Euripides’ classic Iphigenia at Aulis. The play, directed by Peter Shebay’a, with a set designed by David Kurani, was produced by the students of FAAH 283, a theater workshop class led by Adoni Maalouf, with extensive help from senior pre-med student Nicholas Khattar. Hani Hassan played a prominent role as associate director.

The story: the Greek army, led by King Agamemnon, is on its way to Troy to take revenge on Paris for abducting Menelaus’s wife, Helen. The goddess Artemis demands that Iphigenia be sacrificed or else she will not grant the wind needed for the Greek army to sail to Troy. As the play opens, Agamemnon has had second thoughts about sacrificing his daughter. However, goaded by his brother Menelaus and sensing the Greek army’s burning desire for war, he succeeds in convincing his daughter to sacrifice herself.

On the surface, heroism would seem to be the play’s theme. Yet as this production brilliantly illustrated, Euripides’ masterpiece is in fact part satire, part tragedy (it was dubbed a tragic-satire), and all told a scathing exposure of the petty lust for power that masks itself in ringing slogans of honor, glory, and dignity.

The very challenging synthesis of the tragic pathos with the sardonic critique was admirably achieved by a team of mostly student neophytes, playing demanding lead roles and creating a nicely nuanced choral ensemble.

Dressed in T-shirts highlighting their allegiance to Greek war heroes, the chorus members provided an often humorous counterpoint to the weighty speeches of the main characters. As the play progressed, their thirst for revenge was tempered by their growing realization that war is an ugly business.

Troy: Mother of All Wars is one in a string of AUB annual productions which almost single-handedly have kept classical theater alive and enjoyable in Beirut. Most notable perhaps was an original dramatization of The Epic of Gilgamesh. These productions have gained critical praise from the local press while often managing to reflect the zeitgeist of Lebanese society. Troy proved a notable success on both counts.