GLOUCESTER Productions presents An Iliad by Lisa Peterson and David O’ Hare – a visceral retelling of Homer’s epic for our time, at the Baxter Flipside from 25 February to 14 March 2026, with evening performances at 7.30pm and Saturday matinees at 3pm. Alan Committie plays “the Poet”.
An Iliad brings Homer’s legendary tale crashing into the present as a living, urgent act of storytelling. In this stage work, a single Poet and the Muse (played by Charl Johan Lingenfelder) summon the Trojan War in real time, asking a simple, unsettling question: why do we keep telling this story – and why do we keep living it?
Award-winning Committie stars in this off Broadway play, directed by Geoffrey Hyland, with a formidable creative team, which includes a newly created soundscape by Charl Johan Lingenfelder, costumes by Michaeline Wessels and lighting by Luke Ellenbogen. The electrifying stripped-back production embraces a stark visual language and a single evolving costume, allowing the performer to shift seamlessly between ancient warrior, contemporary witness and exhausted storyteller. The Muse’s live score becomes both companion and conscience – a voice that remembers when words fail.
Moving fluidly between narration, character and reflection, An Iliad unfolds like a modern ritual. Heroes appear and vanish in a single breath. Music pulses, fractures, mourns and drives the story forward.
“This cannot be a polite, distant epic,” says director Geoffrey Hyland. “It is immediate, human, darkly funny, brutal and tender. And you don’t need to know Homer. Or to love epics. Just be human.”
He continues, “At its heart, An Iliad explores the cost of rage, the seduction of violence and the fragile hope that memory might stop us repeating the same mistakes – even as history proves otherwise.”
An Iliad is a reminder that the oldest stories still know us better than we think.
The play is 95 minutes long. Booking is at Webtickets online or at Pick n Pay stores. For discounted block bookings, fundraisers and charities, contact Carmen Kearns via email at carmen.kearns@uct.ac.za or on 021 680 3993.
