"Tiger at the Gates," a prologue to Homer's "Iliad" from the perspective of the Trojans, was written in France in 1935, four years before the Nazi invasion of France, and the start of the explosive and devastating war that would claim millions of lives and shatter Europe for decades. The truly contemporary play universalizes a tragic story that seems to never stop repeating itself-the story of war. Yet amidst the playwright Jean Giraudoux's beautiful language and delicate treatment of history's most meaningful questions, is a sense of vivacity, humanity, and hilarity of everyday life that surges through the characters and is what makes the show so compelling. Far beyond a modern retelling of a timeless tale, Giraudoux's dark comedy turns "The Iliad" completely on its head, asking us to imagine the Trojan heroes as ordinary people-sarcastic, vulgar, conflicted-and begging us to imagine a world where, as the French title "La guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu" suggests, the Trojan war will not take place.
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