“The Iliad” is Homer’s epic poem based on the ten year war between the Greeks and the Trojans. So the story is usually driven by battles, blood shed, and the bigger-than-life warriors who make it all happen.

But things appear a little different in the hands of A Red Orchid Theatre.

The company turns the whole epic thing on its head with a version that clocks in at around an hour. And the manly men are passed over in favor of a cast made up of teenage girls.

So what is A Red Orchid trying to say? And more importantly, does it work?

Who better to find out than the two faces that have launched if not a thousand ships, then certainly a thousand duels: Eight Forty-Eight’s dueling critics Jonathan Abarbanel and Kelly Kleiman.