Updating 'Iliad's' litany of war

Enter a weary, barefoot man, carrying an old suitcase, speaking ancient Greek. Well, no wonder he's weary - he's traveled 3,000 years to sing his song again. This is Homer, and his song is

An Iliad

, a brilliant, thrilling adaptation by Lisa Peterson (who also directed) and Denis O'Hare, based on Robert Fagles' luminous translation and now at Princeton's McCarter Theatre.

This theatrical version of the epic tale of the Trojan War revives the early oral tradition - "spoken air" before the label was invented - and combines the Fagles translation with insertions of conversational language and contemporary analogies. The result may be the best antiwar play I've ever seen.

The Iliad recounts the story of the war between Greece and Troy, which began when Paris, a young Trojan prince, stole Helen from Menelaus, the powerful Greek king. This launched the legendary thousand ships - each, our Homer points out, manned by young men from places like Trenton and Miami and . . . well, "you get the point."

Achilles, the superhuman warrior, sulks in his tent, first in hurt pride caused by the arrogant Agamemnon, then grief-stricken by the death of his friend Patroclus. When he finally roars into battle, it is mayhem, and "shining Hector," the great warrior of Troy, is killed and his body desecrated.

Stephen Spinella provides voices for all the characters, from Helen ("bitch that I am, vicious, scheming") to old, heartbroken Priam, king of Troy. He is the bard and also the bardic commentator, likening the intoxication of the battlefield ("Earth ran hot with blood blood blood and red death! And it feels so good!") to the wild moment of total road rage. He roars, he whispers, he weeps.

It is a heroic performance, requiring nearly two uninterrupted hours of impassioned speech, without props and with only the addition of shocking, evocative music played by Brian Ellingsen on bass. Yet when you leave you'll feel you've heard the horror-struck Hecuba and the feckless Paris, seen Achilles' armor, the corpse-strewn beach, the funeral pyres - the whole hideous pageant of nine years of war.

The Homeric devices of repetition and incantation are in place ("The end closed in around him . . . and his soul went winging down to the House of Death"), but the most effective epic convention here is list-making. This is most devastating as the poet launches a list of wars, beginning with Alexandria and continuing on and on through the Crusades, through Hiroshima, Vietnam, Sarajevo, stopping (only for the moment) with Kabul.

When Homer returns to the story, he finds he hasn't the heart to sing the next events - the Trojan Horse and the consequent annihilation of a civilization. The show ends with, "You see?" Three thousand years and we still don't see.

Through Nov. 7 at Matthews Theatre at McCarter Theatre Center, 91 University Place, Princeton. Tickets $20-$66. Information: 609-258-5050 or www.mccarter.org.EndText