The Trojans re-creates the glory days of a group of warehouse workers in North Texas (photo by Vivian Hoffman)
THE TROJANS
The Cell Theatre
338 Twenty-Third St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Thursday – Sunday through April 26
www.thecelltheatre.org
Friday Night Lights meets Homer’s The Iliad with a touch of The Outsiders in Leegrid Stevens’s outrageously entertaining synthwave musical The Trojans, which has been extended through April 26 at the Cell.
Stevens and director Eric Paul Vitale have moved the epic Greek poem to a shipping facility in Carlton, North Texas, where a group of overworked, bored employees decide to suddenly reenact their glory days revolving around a crucial homecoming high school football game between the Trojans and their archrivals, the Highland Kings.
Scenic designer Simon Cleveland has transformed the front room of the Cell into a warehouse stocked with packages ready to ship to Heodorokon Nitis in Corinth, Mississippi, Thelexis Boulos in Parthenon, Arkansas, Stylis Fotikos in Achille, Oklahoma, and Marbara Vasiloudou in Troy, Alabama. Christopher Annas-Lee’s lighting features LED strips that outline the performance area on the floor, where an audience of about fifty sits on three sides, surrounded by towering walls of boxes. Signs warn, “This department has worked
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days without a lost time injury: Be alert . . . Accidents hurt,” and “Notice: How to lift correctly — Bend knees to lift — Prevent back injury — Don’t bend over,” things that teenagers don’t need to worry about but older adults do.
The show begins with Heather (Deshja Driggs) and Doug (Sam Tilles) complaining about their jobs. “Oh man, one of those days,” Doug says, to which Heather responds, “Every day’s one of those now.” Heather asks Doug to tell one of his stories; Doug is worried that he will be caught by their manager, Daris (Arya Grace Gaston), and get fired, but soon the gang is re-creating “the Hit,” a controversial play during a long-ago high school football game by Keeley (Erin Treadway) that initiated the feud between the Trojans and the Kings. After Sondra (Jen Rondeau) questions how truthful their version is, Heather pulls out the actual cassette from the homecoming dance, puts it in an old red tape player, and everyone is transported back to the 1980s.
The Trojans consist of star quarterback Johnny/Agamemnon (Roger D. Casey); his girlfriend, Heather/Helen, the most popular girl in school; wide receiver Doug/Diomedes; the not-too-bright but sincere Jack/Ajax (E. James Ford), the running back who has to step in for Keeley/Achilles after Keeley quits the team; Lucas/Patroclus (Daphne Always), Keeley’s devoted boyfriend; and Sondra/Cassandra, who tells fortunes with a folded origami paper device known as a cootie catcher or chatterbox. The Kings are led by teen heartthrob Daris/Paris and his brother, imposing QB Tark/Hector (Alcorn Minor).
As they prepare for the big game, loyalties are tested, secrets are revealed, and hilarious songs are sung, from “OooAhhUs” and “Not Any More” to “Something Bad’s About to Happen” and “We’ll Never Become.”
A production of Brooklyn-based Loading Dock Theatre, The Trojans has a charming DIY feel, as the warehouse employees use their hard hats as football helmets, yellow-and-black vests as uniforms, and palettes, forklifts, and ladders as cars and other forms of movement. Will Watt’s sound includes appropriately muffled music when it’s supposedly coming out of the old tape deck, while Mindy Rebman’s boisterous choreography puts the audience right in the middle of a 1980s high school pep rally gone wrong. The ensemble, which also includes Bradley Cashman, Emma Imholz, Emma Kelly, Max Raymond, and Katherine Taylor in swing roles, is terrific, both as adults worrying about their job status and as teenagers making what might be one last grab at greatness.
Stevens references The Iliad over and over without the show being a one-to-one reimagining. A particularly sly moment occurs when Tark is reciting some football plays, saying, “Trips Left-60 Flip-Y Sticks. Go. Watch the backer if so, go hot, if not, post route. Touchdown. Let’s go. Heavy right 35 Pistol Zap. Go. Play action to a bootleg. If cover three, run. If not, deep left, Touchdown. Let’s go. Bunch right, green jet, Counter 2. Go.” Daris answers, “This is like the shittiest poem ever,” not unlike what a high school student might say about Homer’s works.
Deena Kaye’s music and vocal direction is thoroughly engaging; each actor sings and dances in accordance with their character. Thus, Casey and Driggs excel in that respect, whereas Ford has a more appropriately bumpy ride.
Early on, Heather asks Johnny, “Do you think in thirty years we’ll love music as much as we do now? . . . Do you think we’ll still love to dance? . . . Do you think we’ll still love to drive under the stars?” His concentration fully on the upcoming game, Johnny replies, “I think we’ll pretty much like all the same stuff we do now.”
Ah, the glorious dreams of youth.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]