Local actors read from Greek play to celebrate Knox County essential workers

GAMBIER – Theater of War Frontline returns Wednesday with all Knox County actors in an online production of Sophocles’ “Philoctetes.”

The purpose of the production is to create a dialogue about the stories of local essential workers and what they’ve faced during the pandemic.

Local residents are asked to register for the free Zoom event — which will be presented from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 7 — by signing up at frontlineknox.eventbrite.com.

“Our hope is to create conditions for constructive and healing dialogue between diverse members of the Knox County community about the challenges faced by frontline professionals and essential workers during the pandemic,” Bryan Doerries, the artistic director of Theater of War Productions, said.

Those frontline workers include more than just medical professionals.

“It’s the grocery store clerks, it’s the people stocking the shelves, it’s the people making food deliveries to caregivers — and the night, because people are ill or those folks who are essential, who are essential workers who have to keep the country going when, you know, a good part of it was shut down,” Mount Vernon Mayor Matt Starr said.

Last week, Doerries confirmed frontline panelists who are already lined up include a librarian from the Knox County Library and an employee from Knox County Head Start.

Participating actors are Knox County residents along with Kenyon College faculty and alumni, Doerries said. Starr will portray Odysseus. Jon Tazewell, the Thomas S. Turgeon professor of Drama at Kenyon College, will play the main character of Philoctetes. Aaron Moreland, a local actor from Mount Vernon, will play one of the other main roles. Other actors include Megan Evans; Maggie Perkins, Kenyon Class of 2020; and Lars Hanson, Kenyon Class of 1986.

“Philoctetes” is a play about a veteran dying from an illness contracted from a snake bite who gets abandoned on an island on the way to the Trojan War, Doerries said. The Greeks learn from an oracle that they will never win the war unless they go back and get Philoctetes off the island.

The dramatic readings of this play are intended to set up a conversation of the challenges of meeting the needs of everyone in the community and keeping people who feel isolated or abandoned in the fold, he said.

“It really highlights the ethical issue — the moral issue of balancing the suffering of one versus the good of the group,” Starr said.

The play really creates an opportunity for people with different perspectives to share their stories without feeling conflict, Doerries said.

“There are a lot of unselfish people in the community, and they have been hanging tough,” Starr said. “They’ve been very unselfish and sort of taking one for the team. There’s a good deal of suffering that they’ve had to endure as well.”

This is the third performance of Theater of War Productions’ yearlong virtual residency at Kenyon. It will present a new project based on Sophocles’ final play, “Oedipus at Colonus,” on May 6.