Philoctetes

For some reason the Philoctetes has long mouldered in relative obscurity. Adams House and translator Robert Torrance are to be commended for staging this sensitive product of Sophocles' maturity before a Harvard audience for the first time since 1933.

Like many Greek tragedies, Philoctetes draws upon the Homeric epos for characters and situations. At the outset, the great Greek archer, Philoctetes, is languishing in a cave on Lemnos, abandoned by his army because of an infected foot. Odysseus and Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, come to Lemnos to persuade Philoctetes to give them the bow of Heracles. Without it, says the seer Helenus, the Greeks will never capture Troy. After many a stratagem and one deus ex machina, all three embark for Troy with the bow. Sophocles artfully balances these three characters so that at one pole Odysseus represents super-subtlety, and at the other Neoptolemus embodies noble naivete. In the middle is Philoctetes.

Ultimately, the translation of Greek poetry is a doomed craft, but Torrance succeeds at it remarkably well. His smooth and graceful verse rendering captures Sophocles' sense and most of his imagery. Even the frequent iteration of "wretch that I am" does little to mar the flow of the language. Naturally Torrance loses the melody and complex rhythms of the original; this, of course, was unavoidable in a translation.

Despite the imposing vehicle Sophocles-Torrance supplied them, the cast, with one outstanding exception, spoke stiffly, gesturing awkwardly and seldom. The exception, David Dunton (Philoctetes), never lapsed into the stagy formality that plagued his colleagues. He shaped his speeches with intelligence and substituted compelling facial expressions for the movements his maimed body could not perform. Only Dunton's tendency to place all his weight on his bad foot detracted from his otherwise convincing performance.

Dimitri Villard as Neoptolemus brought little insight and meager stage presence to a demanding part. Neoptolemus, an honest, forthright youth, is forced by Odysseus into a double reversal of character. In order to fool. Philoctetes, he must pretend to be naive, that is, he must "play" himself. Villard's vapid interpretation excluded all this complexity. Thus, when the time came for him to break down and tell all to Philoctetes, he had not prepared the audience with any previous dramatic tension. His moment fizzled.

Thomas Bettridge as Odysseus seemed to think he was presenting a dramatic monologue. Even during heated interchanges he continually faced the audience, leered slily (and in precisely the same way each time) and coldly declaimed his lines.

Always intelligible, the chorus may well be quite an attraction in future performances. They have already achieved a good unison sound and, hopefully, will project more style into their stylized gestures as time goes on. Raphael Crystal's music provided an exciting musical foundation and added considerably to the force of the singing.

David Follansbee designed a stark and functional set which permitted a great deal of variety in a small area. One of its finest features was allowing John Nathan to remain concealed behind a rock at the top until his last-moment, surprise appearance as Heracles, a triumph of type-casting not soon to be equalled anywhere.