Overview
With exquisite irony and humor Miss Maclnnes brings us one of the few playable, momentous events of the wanderings of Ulysses; and the result is a classical pleasure of pure delight. This is the story of Ulysses' homecoming, the portrait of a man who has been through the greatest adventures on earth, now trailing the remnants of his prodigious strength and might behind him. He comes disguised, to find pirates in command of his home and island, and his wife, Penelope, committed to marry one of them after she finished her legendary, interminable weaving. In one ruse, he splits the pirates into two camps, sending one group to escape in a boat that will sink at sea. Then he encounters and slays the members of the other group. But what sets the play head-and-shoulders above the best of other professional adaptations is the singular characterization of Homer, who has tagged along home with Ulysses. This isn't exactly the Homer we know, or the Zenophon either. He's a poet, all right, but of the wrong time and place. (You will find that other poets to come, from the Bible to Shakespeare, from Keats to Stein, quote from him liberally, and without acknowledging the source). But the truth about this Homer is that he's pretty worn out by all these me-anderings, and is in the habit of sleeping through the most important events. His recounting of them, therefore, is far more glamorized than we ever realized. A truly delightful entertainment.