Handcart Ensemble,
Verse Theater Manhattan,
and Workshop Theater Company
present

KINGS

THE SIEGE OF TROY

An account of Homer’s Iliad
by Christopher Logue

Adapted and directed for the stage
by Jim Milton

Handcart Ensemble, Verse Theater Manhattan, and Workshop Theater Company present a revival of the American premiere of Kings, British poet/playwright Christopher Logue’s ferocious modern adaptation of the first two books of Homer’s Iliad.

Less a translation than a vivid re-imagining, Kings moves with cinematic speed to create full-blooded and haunting portraits of the great figures of Trojan War. The mythic clashes of heroes and gods evoke the battles of Stalingrad and Normandy through Logue’s stark contemporary verse, which has been hailed as “beautifully rhythmic, controlled and urgent” (The Independent) and which has earned him the Whitbread Prize. Kings has previously played on the BBC, at the Tricycle and the Royal National Theatres in London, and as part of the Edinburgh Festival. This production is a revised version of the 2001 American premiere.

“Kings aggressively turns the listener into a co-creator. Zeus, Hera, Agamemnon, Priam, Achilles, Hector, Odysseus and many others spring to life in the voices of two actors.... Seeing and hearing them is a profoundly ... exciting experience.... When the angry debates of gods and men end and the soldiers, we hear, ‘moved out and fell in love with war again,’ our hearts ache.” (D. J. R. Bruckner, New York Times)

Location

The Workshop Theater Company
312 West 36th Street
Fourth Floor East, btwn 8th/9th Aves
New York, NY 10018 (Google map)

Tickets

Tickets cost $18 and are available via SmartTix.

Cast

Dana Watkins*
J. Eric Cook