Review: AN ILIAD at Baxter Flipside

In Alan Committie’s riveting solo performance of An Iliad, the ancient epic is stripped of any safe historical distance and hurled, bruised and bleeding, into the present moment. Performed at the Baxter Theatre (Flipside), this production is not content to retell Homer’s tale — it insists we feel it. Under the assured direction of Geoffrey Hyland, all these technical elements are drawn seamlessly together. Hyland allows the sound and lighting to breathe in tandem with the performance, while giving Committie the space to use his physicality to intensify the text — at times creating moments of raw, almost visceral force that ripple through the auditorium.

From the outset, Committie performs with an extraordinary intensity, taking the audience on an emotional journey marked by rage, grief, exhaustion and despair. As “The Poet”, he summons the horrors of war with emotional urgency, moving seamlessly between narrator, witness and victim. Particularly chilling is the moment where wars of the past are listed alongside those still raging today — a stark reminder that humanity seems incapable of learning from its own destruction. Whether controlled by gods or, more disturbingly, by ego, mankind’s appetite for violence, and the rage that burns in all of us, feels terrifyingly constant.

The production’s impact is powerfully amplified by the soundscape and live effects created by Charl-Johan Lingenfelder. His work does far more than underscore the action; it pulses through the performance like a second heartbeat, heightening tension and drawing the audience deeper into the chaos and brutality of battle.

Visually, the stark grey set design is deceptively simple yet highly effective. An intriguing side canvas becomes a storytelling device in its own right, with shadows cast through the very clever lighting design by Luke Ellenbogen. These shifting silhouettes echo the play’s themes — ghosts of warriors, memories of violence, and the lingering darkness that war leaves behind. Completing the visual imagery is Committie’s costume (designed by Michaeline Wessels): grey-black, ragged and war-torn, suggestive of something vaguely Greek yet deliberately non-specific — he looks like a universal soldier, as if he has just stumbled in from any battlefield, in any war, at any time.

Adapted by Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare from Homer’s epic, and presented by Gloucester Productions, An Iliad emerges as a raw, urgent piece of theatre. This is storytelling at its most elemental — confronting, unsettling and profoundly human. Committie does not allow us to watch comfortably from the sidelines; instead, he forces us to recognise ourselves in the cycle of violence, and to ask why, after thousands of years, the story still feels so painfully familiar.

At the Baxter Flipside from 25 February to 14 March 2026.

Booking on Webtickets: https://www.webtickets.co.za/v2/event.aspx?itemid=1582830190

R220 – R270pp