Page-2 | REVIEW: ‘An Iliad’ speaks to war through the ages | New York Theater | NewJerseyNewsroom.com -- Your State. Your News.

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O’Hare urgently interprets his eternal figure as a driven soul haunted by the horrors he needs to tell. It is an earthy, intermittently angry, performance that contrasts against Spinella’s approach to the character.

While I did not catch Spinella’s work here, I viewed him in McCarter Theatre’s production of the play in Princeton in the fall of 2010. If memory serves, Spinella’s spooky poet delivered the text in a lyrical manner, while suggesting he saw it all happen before his eyes. The woeful, other-worldly Spinella was less human in his incarnation than the smoldering O’Hare.

In either case, the actors inhabit shadowy bare-stage environs artfully designed by Rachel Hauck to look not designed at all but feature a central doorway that suggests the portals of Troy. The effective music composed by Mark Bennett ranges dramatically from unsettling murmurs to murderous noise and is performed in a blaze by bass player Brian Ellingsen situated on a catwalk above the stage, where his presence seems to inspire or torment the poet to greater heights of passion.

Many viewers will be familiar with the story of “An Iliad,” of course, but the thoughtful way that O’Hare and Peterson make it relevant to these days of road rage is impressive.

“An Iliad” continues through March 25 at New York Theatre Workshop, 79 E. Fourth Street, New York. Call (212) 279-4200 or visit www.nytw.org.