Girl on an Altar

by Marina Carr

seen at the Kiln Theatre on 1 June 2022

Here we are at Aulis for the second time within a month as Marina Carr's new play Girl on an Altar has its world premiere at the Kiln Theatre in Kilburn in a production in partnership with Dublin's Abbey Theatre. It is directed by Annabelle Comyn with Eileen Walsh as Clytemnestra, David Walmsley as Agamemnon, Kate Stanley-Brennan as Cilissa (a serving woman, daughter of an Amazon), Nina Bowers as Cassandra, Daon Broni as Aegisthus and Jim Findley as Tyndareus.

From the cast list alone it is clear that this is very different from Age of Rage (reviewed recently), the expansive elaboration of the tangled story of the House of Atreus devised by Ivo van Hove. With Iphigenia and the other children only referred to here and not seen (and the young victim described as only ten years old) the revolting act of sacrifice impinges on the audience through the filter of her parents' reactions: Agamemnon's angry self-justifications and Clytemnestra's appalled feelings of betrayal and loss.

Again ten years are elided and we soon witness Agamemnon's homecoming from Troy, but the play pursues a sharply different narrative from the usual: the king and queen live in tense hostility as he knows that Clytemnestra has had an affair with Aegisthus - there is even a child - and she seethes with resentment and horror at what Agmemnon has done, while still occasionally falling prey to a visceral physical attraction to him. This proves to be a startlingly effective and powerful means to explore the dynamics of a ghastly situation at both the personal and political level. Agamemnon appears to think that present necessity overrides past misdeeds - 'tell me what will make it right between us again?' - while Clytemnestra is trapped in her grief and rage. The situation proves impossible to maintain; when Clytemnestra is banished to the living death of the palace harem rebellion is fomented by Aegsithus and her father Tyndareus, while yet another confrontation between the central couple leads to a shockingly familiar outcome - at which point the play finishes.

The set, designed by Tom Piper, features an enormous bed in an otherwise featureless room. When Clytemnestra is the favoured woman there is a rich brocade cover, but Cilissa eventually has to strip the bed and provide more austere linens when Cassandra is promoted to the premier position. Huge wooden-slatted screens at the back are occasionally pushed aside to reveal further vistas, but much of the action takes place in this suffocating domestic space, The actors not only speak to one another but also tell us directly what they are thinking and what they observe one another doing. It's a curious device which eliminates implausible speechifying while still transmitting vital information about their interior lives; at first I thought there was no direct dialogue at all, but then I realised that conversation and observation were profoundly intermingled, allowing all sorts of nuances and instabilities to flourish.  

The cast are excellent, Eileen Walsh in particular giving a towering performance as Clytemnestra, ably matched by the masculine swagger of David Walmsley's Agamemnon. This is a completely refreshing (though hardly consoling) investigation of a story now millennia old, proving once again the extraordinary dramatic power of these ancient tragedies.