Concept interrupts drama in UNLV’s ‘Trojan Women’

I fell in love with Euripides' "The Trojan Women" eons ago for a simple reason: It was a script that put a face on the victims of war. It's told from the viewpoint of a losing side -- Troy's women -- following the destruction of their city by Sparta.

Nevada Conservatory Theatre director Rayme Cornell and adapter Marianne McDonald haven't so much updated the 416 B.C. script as combined the old with the new.

You sense a major mistake immediately. As you enter the small theater in the round, you notice a chain-link fence that borders a huge sandbox: a jail yard. It's a nice touch, well-designed by Kania Tucker. But there are also soldiers with modern battle gear roaming about. They occasionally stare down audience members, which produces some giggles. Somehow, I don't think giggles is what Cornell had in mind.

We then get a collage of hysteria with the military males throwing the females into the prison amidst the sound of blaring gunfire. Then, an entire contemporary song comes over the speakers while the soldiers and women pose dramatically.

Cornell repeatedly stops the show to give us concept. She doesn't incorporate tone into action. Not only are her "poetic" moments overstated, but she doesn't seem to trust us to note the obvious similarities between the women of Troy and contemporary politics.

The characters are obviously beyond the experiences of the mostly university cast. Potentially devastating lines -- "Yesterday I was queen! Now, I'm a prisoner!"; "Come and look at your homes for the last time!"; and "Suffering has burnt me like the city!" -- are delivered as if the women were complaining of nothing more than an ingrown toenail. The director seems to feel yelling is the only way to express angst.

And what's with the boogieing of the cast members at curtain call? Is that Cornell's way of saying, "We were only kidding"? Not at all an appropriate way to end a great, serious work.

The star of the show is unquestionably Jeremy Hodges' lighting. He shows us the fog of war through a haze that suggests the surreal chaos of the battlefield.

Unlike the actors, Hodges succeeds in giving us a sense of genuine tragedy.

Anthony Del Valle can be reached at vegastheaterchat @aol.com. You can write him c/o Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125.