by Aeschylus adapted by Rory Mullarkey
seen at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre on 1 October 2015
The second major production of the Oresteia in London this year is directed by Adele Thomas and designed by Hannah Clark, with George Irving as Agamemnon, Katy Stephens as Clytemnestra, Joel MacCormack as Orestes and Rosie Hilal as Electra, and also Naana Agyei-Ampadu as Cassandra, Dennis Herdman as the Herald, Branka Katic as Athena, Trevor Fox as Aegisthus and Petra Massey as Cilissa (Orestes' nurse).
Merely providing a more extensive cast list shows that the style of this version is quite different from that produced at the Almeida Theatre. It is more clearly 'faithful' to the original trilogy by Aeschylus, in that the three parts presented to us are clearly 'Agamemnon', 'Choephori' and 'Eumenides', and the secondary group of characters therefore has more immediate impact. The story of Iphigenia is related by the chorus near the beginning of 'Agamemnon' but not explicitly dramatised, and this certainly redresses the balance of the opening play.
As is the nature of a performance at the Globe, the audience has time to take in the atmosphere, as the whole acting area is already revealed in broad daylight. The highly decorated pillars and back wall of the stage are here covered by large pieces of unadorned plywood, producing an unsettling effect of some seediness. The central doors, also of plywood, are shut; two steps lead up to a platform in front of them, and they are flanked by tall braziers. To the left, scrawled in red paint, is the slogan TYMMA TYMMATI TEIΣAI ('pay stroke for stroke'). All the while, smoke - perhaps incense, though it was odourless - billows out of vents above and below, making, it must be said, for real difficulty in seeing the stage through the sunlight. (Fortunately it was dispelled before the performance proper began.)
On a platform among the groundlings a young man in black uniform - very like a security guard at a function - stands nervously whistling and looking about. At the blast of a horn, he immediately begins to speak, quelling the pre-performance chatter and restlessness with his invocation to the gods, serious yet homely, a palace employee mindful of both the importance of his task and the risk it carries to his own welfare. This is the Watchman (played by Joel MacCormack in an uncredited role), who impels us into the drama with startling abruptness.
This opening speech and the arrival of the chorus, with their extended ruminations on fate, justice, and the Iphigenia story, give an entirely different impression from that evoked in the Almeida's 'Oresteia' with its intense focus on family dynamics. The public, rather than the private, effect of the war is the first issue presented to the audience, and so Clytemnestra's appearance is a public event, in which she is both enigmatic and somehow dangerous. Only the slightest crick of her neck at moments when her authority is questioned indicates the danger, but it is a telling gesture. It is not until after the murders that her private grief and rage is revealed in her exultant self-justifications. Indeed, it is the public sphere which merits almost all the attention of the opening scenes, leaving aside private motivations, and the whole notion of the revelation or development of character. The confrontation between Clytemnestra and Agamemnon likewise swirls with undercurrents of threat; the returning commander senses the impropriety of treading on the precious carpets to enter the house, but he defers to his wife's implacable will.
Following Agamemnon's disappearance into the house, attention turns to Cassandra. Instead of incomprehensible ravings we have the full story of Cassandra' encounter with Apollo and her vision of the blood-soaked aura surrounding the house of Agamemnon. Though her words were at times unfortunately obscured by the oboe accompaniment, the sense of prophetic possession, ecstatic but unwelcome, was viscerally portrayed. The Chorus, unnerved by her despair, already uneasy about the political situation (so to speak), reveal the full measure of their confusion when screams are heard from within.
The display of the murdered Agamemnon and Cassandra is gruesome - perhaps to an exaggerated degree - but only now does the personal side of Clytemnestra's action achieve prominence, with her own references to the death of her daughter. Yet this entirely understandable grief and rage gains her no sympathy from the Chorus, and it is savagely undercut by the arrival of Aegisthus, who claims with repellent pride that the plot was all his own as vengeance in the long running family feud. What Clytemnestra is doing with such a disgusting character is not at all clear, and how she reacts to this upstaging of her own revenge is curiously but aptly masked by the fact that she is covered in blood so that her expression is hard to read. Her attempt to claim that the situation is resolved does not bode well.
The second half of the production, containing 'The Libation Bearers' and 'The Kindly Ones', continues the emphasis on the public space rather than the private. The palace doors, and the surrounding lintels, are now entirely black, intensifying the mood of disaster. Orestes here is not recovering his memories from psychic oblivion; rather the plot is presented as on-going narrative. The great invocation to Agamemnon's spirit, performed by Orestes, Electra and the chorus of libation bearers, is presented as a ritual of preparation for performing a necessary sacrifice, urgent and empowering. Fortified by this, Orestes can use the situation to hand, lulling Clytemnestra by announcing his own death to her, while the chorus can encourage his grief-stricken nurse to alter the terms of the queen's summons to Aegisthus so that he comes alone (still swaggering) to the palace to meet his death. Only at the final confrontation between mother and son does Orestes momentarily falter, but the deed is still done. Unfortunately for Orestes, the result is another display of murdered bodies, on the same blood-spattered table as those which closed the first half.
In the final play the Furies are not demons of Orestes' mind; again the production appeals to more public concerns. The last part opens with a speech from the priest of Delphi directly to the audience, in front of a new backdrop of stark black and white circles. The speech in the original play recounts Apollo's arrival at Delphi, but this is here replaced by an extraordinarily clever admonishment to us 'moderns' about the abandonment of temple-worship - effectively about treating religion as a heritage industry or an optional extra to life. This sets the scene for the confrontation between Apollo and the Furies, and for Athena's institution of a human court to try the case of Orestes and thus establish a means of administering justice without evoking a perpetual cycle of vengeance.
There were some false moves. At times the music was too intrusive, obscuring rather than illuminating the spoken word. The power of the final resolution - the institution of the court - was weakened by the fact that Athena herself was not a strong enough presence; her spoken English did not command the necessary authority. The final acquiescence of the Furies - their transformation from Erinyes into Eumenides - was hampered by the wild makeup which was appropriate to their initial state, but totally anomalous to their new role. The final procession, using a giant winged golden phallus, struck a false note; although the Oresteia has an upbeat conclusion, it is not one of ribaldry.
I've described in detail the themes exemplified in this production because the actual staging reflects quite strongly what it is that Aeschylus's plays present. For much of the time, the style of the acting, hieratic, incantatory, often accompanied by music, forced us to see that the squalid story of the family curse was only a part of the drama, that it was the springboard to a far more important presentation of the human predicament in relation to the execution of justice. The very aspects of Greek drama that seem most foreign to modern tastes - the opacity of character, the presence of a chorus, the use of heightened language, music and dance, were seized and used to mostly powerful effect. This was not at the expense of having the chorus undifferentiated. On the contrary, many spoke out at crucial times in entirely distinct personalities, widening the sense of universal applicability. And when personal motivation was needed to heighten dramatic tension or to emphasise that the characters were not just automatons or the playthings of the gods, it was powerfully revealed by an excellent cast.
The production made brilliant use of the Globe as a space for enacting this great trilogy. The chance to see two completely different versions of the Oresteia within months of each other is a real delight.
This opening speech and the arrival of the chorus, with their extended ruminations on fate, justice, and the Iphigenia story, give an entirely different impression from that evoked in the Almeida's 'Oresteia' with its intense focus on family dynamics. The public, rather than the private, effect of the war is the first issue presented to the audience, and so Clytemnestra's appearance is a public event, in which she is both enigmatic and somehow dangerous. Only the slightest crick of her neck at moments when her authority is questioned indicates the danger, but it is a telling gesture. It is not until after the murders that her private grief and rage is revealed in her exultant self-justifications. Indeed, it is the public sphere which merits almost all the attention of the opening scenes, leaving aside private motivations, and the whole notion of the revelation or development of character. The confrontation between Clytemnestra and Agamemnon likewise swirls with undercurrents of threat; the returning commander senses the impropriety of treading on the precious carpets to enter the house, but he defers to his wife's implacable will.
Following Agamemnon's disappearance into the house, attention turns to Cassandra. Instead of incomprehensible ravings we have the full story of Cassandra' encounter with Apollo and her vision of the blood-soaked aura surrounding the house of Agamemnon. Though her words were at times unfortunately obscured by the oboe accompaniment, the sense of prophetic possession, ecstatic but unwelcome, was viscerally portrayed. The Chorus, unnerved by her despair, already uneasy about the political situation (so to speak), reveal the full measure of their confusion when screams are heard from within.
The display of the murdered Agamemnon and Cassandra is gruesome - perhaps to an exaggerated degree - but only now does the personal side of Clytemnestra's action achieve prominence, with her own references to the death of her daughter. Yet this entirely understandable grief and rage gains her no sympathy from the Chorus, and it is savagely undercut by the arrival of Aegisthus, who claims with repellent pride that the plot was all his own as vengeance in the long running family feud. What Clytemnestra is doing with such a disgusting character is not at all clear, and how she reacts to this upstaging of her own revenge is curiously but aptly masked by the fact that she is covered in blood so that her expression is hard to read. Her attempt to claim that the situation is resolved does not bode well.
The second half of the production, containing 'The Libation Bearers' and 'The Kindly Ones', continues the emphasis on the public space rather than the private. The palace doors, and the surrounding lintels, are now entirely black, intensifying the mood of disaster. Orestes here is not recovering his memories from psychic oblivion; rather the plot is presented as on-going narrative. The great invocation to Agamemnon's spirit, performed by Orestes, Electra and the chorus of libation bearers, is presented as a ritual of preparation for performing a necessary sacrifice, urgent and empowering. Fortified by this, Orestes can use the situation to hand, lulling Clytemnestra by announcing his own death to her, while the chorus can encourage his grief-stricken nurse to alter the terms of the queen's summons to Aegisthus so that he comes alone (still swaggering) to the palace to meet his death. Only at the final confrontation between mother and son does Orestes momentarily falter, but the deed is still done. Unfortunately for Orestes, the result is another display of murdered bodies, on the same blood-spattered table as those which closed the first half.
In the final play the Furies are not demons of Orestes' mind; again the production appeals to more public concerns. The last part opens with a speech from the priest of Delphi directly to the audience, in front of a new backdrop of stark black and white circles. The speech in the original play recounts Apollo's arrival at Delphi, but this is here replaced by an extraordinarily clever admonishment to us 'moderns' about the abandonment of temple-worship - effectively about treating religion as a heritage industry or an optional extra to life. This sets the scene for the confrontation between Apollo and the Furies, and for Athena's institution of a human court to try the case of Orestes and thus establish a means of administering justice without evoking a perpetual cycle of vengeance.
There were some false moves. At times the music was too intrusive, obscuring rather than illuminating the spoken word. The power of the final resolution - the institution of the court - was weakened by the fact that Athena herself was not a strong enough presence; her spoken English did not command the necessary authority. The final acquiescence of the Furies - their transformation from Erinyes into Eumenides - was hampered by the wild makeup which was appropriate to their initial state, but totally anomalous to their new role. The final procession, using a giant winged golden phallus, struck a false note; although the Oresteia has an upbeat conclusion, it is not one of ribaldry.
I've described in detail the themes exemplified in this production because the actual staging reflects quite strongly what it is that Aeschylus's plays present. For much of the time, the style of the acting, hieratic, incantatory, often accompanied by music, forced us to see that the squalid story of the family curse was only a part of the drama, that it was the springboard to a far more important presentation of the human predicament in relation to the execution of justice. The very aspects of Greek drama that seem most foreign to modern tastes - the opacity of character, the presence of a chorus, the use of heightened language, music and dance, were seized and used to mostly powerful effect. This was not at the expense of having the chorus undifferentiated. On the contrary, many spoke out at crucial times in entirely distinct personalities, widening the sense of universal applicability. And when personal motivation was needed to heighten dramatic tension or to emphasise that the characters were not just automatons or the playthings of the gods, it was powerfully revealed by an excellent cast.
The production made brilliant use of the Globe as a space for enacting this great trilogy. The chance to see two completely different versions of the Oresteia within months of each other is a real delight.
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