Repertory theatre is abundant in Bellingham this summer. You don’t need a hotel room, but mark your calendar for repeated trips through August to the Sylvia Center for the Arts for, as their website states, “five plays based on the plays of Ancient Greece, presented in contemporary versions.” Three of them are free and outdoors, below the Whatcom Museum.

“Ajax” opened last week. Rewritten from Sophocles play by Bryan Doerries, a military veteran, it recasts this Greek tragedy, war being a human constant for more than 2,500 years.

In Homer’s epic, “The Iliad,” the warrior Aja...