Writer / actor Evan Webber, with a projection of co-creator Frank Cox O'Connell, during the first part of Ajax & Little Iliad. Photo: Meghan Krauss
“We deny the premise of the question,” laughed Frank Cox O’Connell, when I asked him what it felt like to co-create such a successful theatre show. Both Frank and his friend Evan Webber are the makers of Ajax and Little Iliad, a reviewed-in-the-Globe-and-Mail, on-tour-all-over-Canada kind of successful theatre show that recently played in the Eric Harvie Theatre. “It’s weird thinking that we’re successful, because we just wanted to make a show that was interesting to each other — that we only hoped others would be interested in too.”
O'Connell and Webber, on the "set" of Ajax. Photo: Meghan Krauss
The show, in two parts, is partly based on a true-life conversation between Evan and a friend in the military. Both plays address Canada’s involvement in war, by taking two ancient heroic stories and making them modern. “I noticed from conversations with people who go to war, that they’re as idealistic about what they do as I am about what I do,” Evan said. “It raised a lot of questions for me about what I thought I was doing as a Canadian citizen, and as a theatre-maker. Where does the road divide for people who want to make a difference?”
