The Hunters Moon, though not an image within the confines of the theater, should be an image for this play in the future. It is a symbol of the urge to gather supplies to sustain us for the long, bleak winter ahead, just as this script by Lisa Peterson and Denis O'Hare is a symbol of the self-destructive nature of mankind. The unanticipated juxtaposition of the two things brought me up short. I had never conceived of my place, our place, in the world's tragic history. The language here, both simple yet complex and poetic, provided me with the pain of reality and the beauty of tradition. Chesser makes the language sing as she falls into Greek and Aramaic when she cannot speak in English. Her tongue and her mind wander but always en route to a modern reality. Her Poet has told this story everywhere, all around the globe, hoping to alleviate both our pain at our past and a reluctance to pursue this course in the future. 

        Chesser is quite an actor. In establishing her role as The Poet, she removes all gender from her being and becomes an entity charged with the Gods-given duty to speak to people for centuries about the essence of war, about its origins and its devastating aftermath. She becomes the human edition of the book, almost devoid of personality and bias. Her Poet has a responsibility to alert humanity and this is done through the tale itself. She is not involved, though the remarkable use of inflection in the voice shows that to be a lie. We wonder how much longer she can wander the earth telling this story to groups of people who cannot seem to grasp its importance. Chesser compels us to understand the difficulty of preaching to a choir that cannot harmonize with her forceful and straightforward tune. Nothing about the Poet's frustration is said, but it is felt. Deeply felt. Playing these opposing objects, telling the stories of varied viewpoints, of Achilles and Hector. of Helen and Andromache, of Agamemnon and Zeus, must be exhausting; it is for us in the dark watching and listening, stretching into the unfamiliar and unknown.