Reviews of the Production
Steve Hatzai creates a drama about the last month of Socrates' life by inventing a Socratic dialogue. And Iron Age Theatre has found a perfect venue for this intellectually satisfying play: a creamy, high-ceilinged room with Corinthian columns in the American Philosophical Society. We start by watching the trial, in which Socrates (Bob Weick) displays not only his irrefutable logic but also his refusal to save his life at the cost of his principles. The house lights are up, and we are the citizens of Athens, just as we are the extended jury when we sit in front of the television watching a courtroom drama. (Imagine James Spader buttoning his toga as he makes one of his blindingly articulate and impassioned arguments on Boston Legal.) The issues are relevant enough: freedom of thought and civic responsibility.
Socrates will be, as we already know, condemned. Then comes the long wait for the cup of hemlock - the execution cannot take place until the ship returns from Delos. (With Beckettian theatricality, Hatzai makes us wait for a ship that will not return until after the play is over.)
Socrates continues his "crime" of teaching the youth of Athens. Lyntos (David Corenswet), the sweet, intelligent son of the warden who brings his food each morning, provides Socrates with his last student - and we are taught as well: "Maybe the questions are the answers."
What a pleasure to see a Fringe show that takes serious ideas seriously.
Toby Zinman
The Philadelphia Inquirer

Drawn from history and supported by impressive dramaturgy, Steve Hatzai’s Waiting for the Ship from Delos captures the passion of Socrates’ defense 2,400 years ago against charges of corrupting youth and denying Athens’ gods. Bob Weick’s winning portrayal shows Socrates defiant in defeat, verbally skewering his accusers and teaching his last pupil, his jailer's son (David Corenswet), while awaiting death by hemlock.
John Doyle’s production is ideally framed by the austere American Philosophical Society’s high-ceilinged hall, where we’re all cast as Athenian jurors. Imagine, a Fringe show that’s cerebral without being perplexing!
Mark Cofta
The Philadelphia City Paper

As a philosophy undergrad, I once saw a staged reading of Plato’s dialogues. And I can tell you that whatever the Greek philosophers might have added to the dramas of their time, they certainly didn’t grow up influenced by TV.
No such criticism can be leveled at Steve Hatzai, the Philadelphia actor who has written Waiting for the Ship at Delos: The Last Days of Socrates. Hatzai knew well enough from his days as a performer to break up the monotony of the straightforward Socratic conversations into flashbacks that shifted between Socrates imprisoned in his cell and scenes from the trial that convicted and sentenced him to death.
And while the most longish of these vignettes— Socrates’s defense— went on a bit too long and with too little for Melitus (Socrates’s accuser) to say (other than some variant of, “That’s preposterous!”), the play consistently engaged on both intellectual and emotional levels. Like the best historical dramas, Hatzai took one of history’s original iconoclasts and humanized him, allowing Bob Weick to flesh out the freethinking legend with fits of anger and frustration over his plight.
JIM RUTTER
Broad Street Review

Links of Interest:
All Academic's Socratic Ignorance and the Trial of Socrates
A Reference Guide to The Trial of Socrates
Analysis of the Crito
Crito
Ancient Greek Law
Criminal Procedure in Ancient Greece
A Tour of the Agora
The American Philosophical Society
Franklin Hall at APS
Information about Delos
Hall of the Bull -Delos Tour Info
The Prison of Socrates?
Hemlock Poison
Steve Martin's "THE DEATH OF SOCRATES"

Become a Fan of Iron Age Theatre on FACEBOOK
See video and learn about production information.

Return to the Home Page