Former Kansas University classics professor Stanley Lombardo will give a one-man performance in “The Inferno” as part of Fringe Festival KC on July 18, 22 and 25 at Westport Coffee House.

Kansas University classics professor emeritus Stanley Lombardo’s dramatic reading of his translation of “Inferno” at this weekend’s Fringe Festival KC may be abridged, but he doesn’t leave out author Dante Alighieri’s famously ominous line, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

Over the next 45 minutes — the max time allowed for Fringe performances — Lombardo, his drum and a walking stick will transport the audience through the 14th-century poem’s circles of hell, complete with sodomites wandering beneath an eternal rain of fire flakes and sinners in a frozen lake gnawing on one another’s skulls.

Not your typical poetry slam material.

We asked Lombardo a little more about himself and his unusual craft. Five things to know:

1 — Who is he?

Lombardo, 72, retired in May 2014 after 37 years at KU. He’s renowned for translating ancient epics. Since his own college days, he said, he wanted to write poetry and study Greek. He started with Homer.

2 — What does translation have to do with performance?

When it comes to ancient poets like Homer, a lot. “Homer composed for performance — for generations, it wasn’t written down,” Lombardo said, explaining that he takes that to heart in his written translations. “If it doesn’t work as a performance for me, it won’t work on the page … I want it to come to life.”

3 — Why Dante?

Lombardo’s done a lot of Homer performances, but only excerpts here and there from Dante — nothing this “elaborate.” His director for “The Inferno,” KU theater professor John Gronbeck-Tedesco, suggested it. Plus, Fringe material has to be new.

4 — Favorite thing about performing?

“Occupying the mind of the original author in the most intimate way,” Lombardo said. “For me, translation has always been not just, ‘What do these words mean?’ but ‘What is the mind that produced this amazing piece of poetry?'”

5 — What else is he up to these days?

Translating “The Epic of Gilgamesh,” which has required studying Akkadian (an extinct east Semitic language). Also continuing to perform dramatic readings at colleges campuses across the country.

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If you go

Lombardo will perform ‘The Inferno’ at 6 p.m. Saturday, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and 9 p.m. July 25 at Westport Coffee House, 4010 Pennsylvania Ave. in Kansas City, Mo. Find a full Fringe schedule online at kcfringe.org. Read about other highlights in Lawrence.com‘s latest Kansas City Connection column.