Club Adriatic

By RICHARD CORLISS

Hubris -- a kind of convulsive, ambitious pride -- was the tragic flaw in many a Greek hero, but it is life's blood to theater people. What else gives them the courage to put epic dreams on a bare stage, to evoke ancient empires with only words and a few props? Arrogance is the mother of theatrical invention, and the spur to Douglas C. Wager's new production of Derek Walcott's The Odyssey at the Arena Stage in Washington.

Walcott, the Nobel-winning West Indian poet whose 8,000-line Omeros hijacked Homer to the Caribbean, here packs the major events of the Odyssey into three brisk hours and still has room for his voluptuous metaphor making and severe truth telling ("What are men? Children who doubt"). After a slow start, in which stilted heroic attitudes virtually define Bad Regional Theater, Odysseus appears, in the burly, assured person of Casey Biggs, and the play takes off. Mythology can be fun when Circe is a sassy dominatrix, the Sirens are mermaids out of a Bette Midler show, and Helen of Troy is a peckish, past-her-prime star who puts on airs -- Bea Arthur trying to be Bea Lillie. All this to Galt $ MacDermot's bouncy, familiar music -- it could be played in the lobby at a Club Med hotel.

When this Odyssey gets going, it's not just an adventure; it's a trip. Anything from flowers to fire may pop out of the sunburnt-orange floorboards. A stormy sea comes to roiling life with just a tilted spar and a few sprawling actors. By the end, the Arena has become a playroom filled with spritely wonder.