The first surviving play in the history of western drama, THE PERSIANS represents a courageous act on the part of its author. The subject of Aeschylus’s play was, in part, the conquering of the Persians by the Greeks, but he presented that event to his Greek audience not from their point of view, but from that of the defeated Persians. In this modern version of the play, Robert Auletta shifts the action of the play from Persia to the Iraq of the first Gulf War, and like Aeschylus, asks Americans to question and challenge their views of the enemy. In Aeschylus’ contrarian tragedy THE PERSIANS, the titular enemies of the author’s native Greece are to be pitied more than censured after their bloody defeat at Greek hands … Robert Auletta’s slickly poetic adaptation moves the action to the Gulf War, deftly shoehorning bloodcurdling descriptions of modern weaponry into the Persian laments and exchanging references to the Greeks for references to the United States. The chorus speaks of ‘velocity bows and razor swords that can laser the heart out of a man’s chest, ’ and much of its dialogue is a litany of exotic ordnance from recent wars in the Middle East. ‘Have we taken too much?’ asks the deposed Queen Atossa … as she contemplates what her country has done to deserve its fate. ‘Have we gone beyond some unknown but sacred line?’ She and her compatriots express remorse for their wrongs, in the process describing our own current state of affairs (‘Is the power of what we own about to destroy us?’) and emphasizing how much we might have in common with our enemies … THE PERSIANS’ best moments are also its most horrifying, including an eloquent, metered blow-by-blow account of the effects of a 5,000-pound bomb on the human body. The bait-and-switch approach to classic political theater is a risky one, sometimes sacrificing subtlety in service of a dated statement, but Auletta mostly pulls it off, forcing sympathy with the rankest of villains … -Sam Thielman, Washington City Paper
