TT: To forgive, divine

In today’s Wall Street Journal drama column, the last of my reports on my recent summer travels, I review American Players Theatre’s productions of The Cure at Troy and The Tempest. Here’s an excerpt.
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Professional productions of the Greek tragedies seem to be growing less common in America—the last time I reviewed one was in 2008—and so American Players Theatre’s revival of “The Cure at Troy,” Seamus Heaney’s adaptation of Sophocles’ “Philoctetes,” is of interest for that reason alone. But APT’s staging, directed by David Frank, the company’s artistic director, is no curiosity. It is, in fact, an overwhelming theatrical experience…
“Philoctetes,” in which Sophocles dramatized the myth of the wounded Greek warrior (David Daniel) who was deserted by Odysseus (Jonathan Smoots) and his comrades, was largely forgotten save by classicists when Mr. Heaney published his English-language adaptation in 1991, four years before he won the Nobel Prize. “The Cure at Troy” is a masterly piece of versification, at once unpretentious in diction and elevated in tone. Without distorting the play’s meaning, Mr. Heaney has subtly emphasized its continuing relevance, placing lines in the mouths of the chorus that liken the furious Philoctetes’ self-consuming desire for revenge to the irredentist madness of Northern Ireland, the land of the poet’s birth…
Three of the cast members are part of APT’s resident ensemble, and they give performances so compelling that you’ll want to hold your breath each time they speak. Mr. Daniel’s Philoctetes is a coolly urbane gentleman-warrior whom pain has reduced to a shrieking shadow of himself. Mr. Smoots’ Odysseus is a rich-voiced cynic who is quick to heed the reassuring call of expediency. And Sarah Day, the leader of the three-woman chorus, narrates the unfolding tragedy with the world-weary wisdom of one who knows in her bones that understanding and forgiveness are not the same thing….
More often than not, incidental music is exactly that, a gloss on a theatrical production that heightens the atmosphere without calling attention to itself. Once in a while, though, a composer makes a uniquely distinctive contribution to a first-rate show, and that’s what Joshua Schmidt has done for James Bohnen’s marvelous outdoor staging of “The Tempest.” Mr. Schmidt, who is best known for his music for “A Minister’s Wife” and “Adding Machine,” has written a score full of delicate, slow-shifting chords that waft through the night air like wispy clouds in a soft breeze, dovetailing them with the natural sounds of the woods that surround APT’s Up-the-Hill Theatre.
Part of what makes this production of “The Tempest” so striking is the contrast between Mr. Schmidt’s magical music and the bluff, deliberately prosy acting of Kenneth Albers as Prospero. Nowadays most actors play Prospero with an elegiac touch, but Mr. Albers (who is also a director of note) has chosen instead to underline the anger that Shakespeare had in mind when he described the old sorcerer as “composed of harshness.” This makes it all the more poignant when the once-vengeful Prospero redeems himself at play’s end by choosing mercy over justice….
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Read the whole thing here.