| . | 04/08/2009
An Oresteia
By: Victor Gluck
Annika Boras as Elektra in a scene from An Oresteia
(Photo credit: Joan Marcus)
The Oresteia usually refers to a trilogy of plays by Aeschylus, the first of the three great Greek tragedians, concerning the fall of the House of Atreus. An Oresteia is the Classic Stage Company’s ambitious reworking of this Greek myth in a new translation by poet Anne Carson. However, what is most unusual about this exciting theatrical event is that Carson has not used all three of the plays in the original Oresteia but has instead chosen to use one play by each of the major Greek tragic poets. Using their Greek spellings, they are Aiskhylos’ Agamemnon, Sophokles’ Elektra, and Euripides’ Orestes.
The plays are presented over two evenings with Part I including Agamemnon and Elektra directed by Brian Kulick and Gisela Cardenas, while Part II which offers Orestes has been directed by Paul Lazar, with associate direction and choreography by Annie-B Parson. However, the plays can be seen in a one day marathon on Saturdays and Sundays with 15 minute intermissions between the plays, rather than a dinner break. While seeing the entire epic cycle in one day has its dramatic advantages, it is probably best to see the plays over two evenings as the third play is presented in a very different style than the first two and it is also the longest at 90 minutes.
Rarely if ever does one get a chance to see plays by Aiskhylos, Sophokles and Euripides back to back and it is an instructive experience to see the differences between them. Aiskhylos’ style is very declamatory with the characters making long speeches, rather than speaking in dialogue form. Here, however, Carson’s contemporary language makes Agamemnon less declamatory than in the Theater for a New Audience production several years ago. In this play the call for justice is the main theme.
In Elektra, Sophokles has evolved sophisticated dialogue to be the method of communication as the characters debate their points of view. Euripides, the youngest of the Greek tragic playwrights, born 45 years after Aiskhylos was considered the rebel or the angry young man in his own time. The cynicism of his Orestes verges on parody, and the production by Lazar and Parson is avant-garde enough to suggest how Euripides must have been viewed in his own time.
An Oresteia, like Aiskhylos’ original trilogy, tells the story of the fall of the House of Atreus, the ruling family of Mycenae. In the first play, Queen Klytaimestra awaits the homecoming of her husband, King Agamemnon, who has led the Greek armies to the Trojan War to recover her kidnapped sister Helen. While he has been away, she has taken as lover his cousin Aigisthos, who was left as joint ruler with her of the kingdom. Klytaimestra burns for revenge on her husband: he had lied to her in order to sacrifice their daughter Iphigenia ten years earlier to calm the winds to allow the Greek fleet to sail for Troy. When Agamemnon arrives with his spoils of war including Kassandra, the Trojan princess, it is too much for Klytaimestra and she exacts her revenge that she had been planning for many years.
In the second play, another ten years have gone by. Elektra, daughter of Klytaimestra (now Queen of all Argos) and the late Agamemnon, laments her fate, the loss of her father, the illicit love affair of her mother, and the fact that her brother Orestes whom she had sent away as a child has not returned to exact revenge on their mother and her paramour. Her dutiful sister Chrysothemis points out to her that the ill treatment she receives from her mother and step-father is primarily her own fault for continuing to call down a judgment on their heads publicly. Klytaimestra confronts her daughter and defends her actions. Little do they know that Orestes, his tutor and his best friend Pylades have arrived but claim to have the ashes of the dead “Orestes” in an urn. While Klytaimestra rejoices and Elektra bemoans her fate, Orestes takes his revenge on his wicked mother and her lover.
In the final play, it is six days since the murders and Orestes has fallen into a delirium exacted by the Furies, the Greek source of punishment, for his crimes. Both he and Elektra have been summoned by the elders of Argos and stand condemned to death. When their uncle Menelaos, husband to Helen, arrives, they appeal to him for support. However, after their grandfather Tyndareos makes his position clear, he declines to help them. In desperation, Orestes, Pylades and Elektra decide to take Helen and her daughter Hermione prisoner to force Menelaos’ hand. Before any more tragedy can afflict this doomed family, Apollo, the god of flight and law, steps in and resolves the dilemma.
The most successful of the three productions is the middle play Elektra, staged by Kulick and Cardenas. Stephanie Roth Haberle reprises her juicy performance of Klytaimestra and is matched by Annika Boras as her wildly ardent daughter. Mickey Solis, who plays a very classical Herald, in Agamemmon, begins as a noirish Orestes, complete with trench coat, hat pulled low on his forehead, and tough accent, and later develops into a Shakespearean hero. The older Aigisthos (played by an over-the-top Craig Baldwin in the first play) is here played by Christopher McCann as a selfish and self-involved ruler. Set in a courtyard by the royal pool, the chorus delineated amusingly by Baldwin, Ching Valdes-Aran and Doan Ly, are sun-bathing courtiers who have befriended Elektra.
Agamemnon uses a chorus of six, three men and three women, making them servants washing up the palace. An impassioned Doan Ly, as the prisoner of war Kassandra, is disturbingly treated by them in a startling scene of violence. The Herald comes out of the audience, breaking the frame of the stage. The death throes of Agamemnon and Kassandra are horrifyingly real, as they should be.
Orestes, staged by Lazar and Parson, has been gimmicked up with a series of modern devices which makes this play the most contemporary of the three. The presentational tone has characters step up to microphones (disguised in vegetation) like rock stars before an audience, turns the two person chorus into d.j.'s or radio announcers, and puts Helen of Troy in drag as played by David Neumann. Parson’s dance for Neumann as the Trojan Slave is entertaining but goes on too long. None of this is in Carson’s script and is the idea of Lazar and Parson.
A unit set by Riccardo Hernandez with slight emendations is used for all three plays. As in the CSC’s last production of Uncle Vanya, the physical setting becomes a problem for part of the audience: a wooden wall with doorways is rolled forward making it impossible for the audience members sitting on the sides to see anything. Rolling the wall forward proves entirely pointless and adds nothing to either the visuals or the dramatic purpose. This wooden wall, blood stained down one side, is extremely ugly and in no way suggests a royal palace either in ancient times or the present. Almost to make up for the ineffective scenery, Oana Botez-Ban’s solid color gowns for the female characters are most beautiful, putting each woman in a symbolic color. Maruti Evans’ lighting is varied and redirects attention at strategic moments.
Due to the many hands who have staged An Oresteia, the production is uneven but fascinating nonetheless. A rare theatrical opportunity to see a Greek trilogy performed by the same actors in contemporary language and in modern dress is an event not to be missed. Anne Carson’s new translation is always accessible, always easy to follow. The Classic Stage Company’s production of An Oresteia also places the oft-seen Electra in the context of the rarely seen Agamemnon and Orestes.
An Oresteia (through April 19)
Classic Stage Company, 136 E. 13th Street, in Manhattan
For tickets, call 212-352-3101 or http://www.classicstage.org
|
|