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I went to Schimmel Center at Pace University filled with dread. The Persians is a rarely performed Greek tragedy for a reason: it is completely static. The play is one interminable monologue after another. Stichomythia — the dialogue between actors, or between the chorus and actor — had not been refined yet, and it is stichomythia that makes drama dramatic. When Aeschylus wrote The Persians, he wrote one long speech followed by another. This does not usually make for great theater.

So, I repeat, it was with a heavy heart that I took my seat. At some point, seven individuals entered the theater with what looked like coats over their arms (in June?). Aha, even more latecomers, I thought (the play started twenty minutes late). But then the lights dimmed, and these seven late arrivals turned out to be the counselors who made up the chorus, in contemporary dress. They educated us about Aeschylus, the play, and the battles of Marathon and Salamis. This is the oldest play there is, they said. Aeschylus fought at Marathon, they said, and lost a brother there: he saw this.

And then our eyes went up to a huge, illuminated map, with Greece and Athens the focal points. The map zoomed slowly out to show where modern Greece lies in relation to Iran and Iraq. And then latter-day Iraq was transformed into ancient Persia, with its capital at Susa. How diminutive Greece was in comparison to the Persian empire, and how startling it was to be taken to Iraq in June 2003. The superimposition of the Persian empire over Iraq brought to mind the antiquity of the latter country, and of its history. Before the play had even begun, I felt Iraq’s “liberation” hanging heavily in the air.

The map faded, and the counselors put on their coats, which turned out to be robes. They were Persian elders; initially, they spoke alone in a series of short phrases, but when they mentioned the “thousands” who had left Persia to invade Greece, they chorused in unison, as they did at the word, “wonderful,” to the accompaniment of very effective music. An essentially static monologue was at once made dramatic. The description of the triumphant departure of the troops was vivid. The chorus chanted, and meant it. The music was not an afterthought: it was an integral part of the whole. Of course, I thought, a chorus in chorus with music: this is Greek tragedy.

The counselors reflected on the possession of great power — on being a superpower, you might say. “Just because you can do a thing, just because it is possible, does that mean you should do it?” they asked. They claimed to have been “deafened by the din of [their] empire-building.” The themes associated with Greek tragedy were writ large here: the Persians acting from hubris; Xerxes being felled by ate, or blind ambition. The idea of a superpower becoming overwhelming, overarching, overreaching — and turning monstrous — rang true.

The stage was perfect for the chorus: a wooden circular platform had been added at the front and simple wooden chairs allowed these old men to sit, and later to simulate ruin by piling the chairs on top of each other in dilapidated heaps. The stage itself was filled with sand (to make all who walked on it stumble a little), which was later lit red, to heighten the drama of the breastbeating after Xerxes’ return.

He comes home to the chorus, his trusted advisers, who have lived for a long time — too long, they say — although they are proud of the splendor of those who went to war, albeit worried that none has returned. They are the very men who through blind ambition pushed Xerxes to invade Greece: they goaded him that he was not half the man his father, Darius, was. Trusted advisers not to be trusted; sons following fathers in power: Is commentary even necessary?

Once the splendid recitation of the departed troops is over, doubt sets in; the play henceforth descends from collective glory to the reduction of its hero, Xerxes. This had not been done in Athenian drama before. Phrynichus, who had also staged these events from the Persians’ point of view, had announced their defeat at the beginning of his play. Aeschylus’ stagecraft builds from hope to despair.

The chorus is interrupted by the queen, Atossa (Roberta Maxwell), who is truly magnificent in her golden headdress and sparkling robe. Her entrance across the sand is quickly covered in carpets. All this grandeur is arrested by the bathos of her opening line: “I don’t know why I am here.” She disarms us with her honesty: she is lost. She has been alone inside the gleaming palace, she says, and although she looks splendid, she is a sparkling shell, as hollow as her palace. She does not even know where Athens is. She sits with her trusted counselors and asks them questions. It is here for the first time that we know that this is not Aeschylus; this is a brilliant, modern adaptation. Atossa is vulnerable and human.

They are interrupted by the herald, who, we know, will have to deliver the dreaded messenger speech. Not so in this production. This is the best messenger speech I have ever heard. He describes the defeat at Salamis, and the slaughter of his comrades. Then, even more painfully, he describes the journey home for the survivors, and the death from starvation along the way of many of them. (The beefiness of this man who made it home as others starved strikes the only false note.) His speech is dramatized by his movements onstage — at one point, he sits frog-like on a chair — and complemented by the chorus, stressing particularly important words, as well as by percussion, cello, and drums. The hacking of men is articulated by the clever use of various instruments. The music and singing are all used to great effect: all the counselors can really sing, and so this is not a half-hearted attempt to add music to the chorus. It is no surprise when the counselors remark that, “Death is long and without music.”

The herald recounts in great detail what has gone terribly wrong for the vast Persian army, and catalogues the list of leaders who have died. Xerxes, however, lives. From Susa, Athens is glorified and Persia is humanized and to be pitied. Darius (Len Cariou) is called up from the dead, and Xerxes returns. We now know the horrors he’s experienced, both in Greece and on his journey home. A mirror at the back of the stage and the great expanse of red sand conjure the extent of this journey and the small stature of Xerxes, who returns a leader alone.

The cast was uniformly excellent except for Michael Stuhlbarg as Xerxes, who seemed a lightweight in comparison with his father and the elders, but, on reflection, maybe this casting was deliberate. This is the man who needed to prove himself because his father was twice the man he was, after all. Images of 43 and 41, perhaps? The play ends with the chorus, Xerxes, and Atossa on their knees, beating their breasts and mourning. They intone together: “O Persia” and “Lost.” One thinks of the looted museums in Baghdad.

Ellen McLaughlin has an affinity for Greek tragedy. She does not know ancient Greek, but she gets to the heart of the language in a way that makes this Persians wholly Greek and yet wholly modern also. Her Helen at New York’s Public Theater was lighthearted and memorable, while the Classic Stage Company production of her Iphigenia and Other Daughters was harrowing in its portrayal of women. This is her most successful adaptation, however. She has taken Aeschylus and, although it is sacrilege to say so (I am a classicist), has vastly improved this undramatic play.

The production, as a whole, is on a par with the best renderings of Greek tragedy that I’ve seen. It also shows how dramatic a Greek tragedy can be with thoughtful staging. This particular drama’s relevance to the political situation today simply made it that much more powerful and thought-provoking.