IPHIGENIA. To 1 March 2003
Sheffield
IPHIGENIA
by Euripides new version by Edna O' Brien
Crucible Theatre To 1 March 2003
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Mat 26 February 2.30pm
Runs 1hr 20min No interval
TICKETS 0114 249 6000
www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk
Review Timothy Ramsden 20 February
A vivid production of a script poised between a free translation and a new play.Massed forces of British brawn, wrapped and tattooed in their union-flags, fill the navy's ships, raucously singing 'Here We Go,' baying for blood from the foreigners protecting the adulterer who seduced a beautiful English princess (think Diana charmalike) to fly with him.
Never mind her husband's a weak cuckold-king. She's English and they're not.
There's only one problem. This is before the days of steam ships, let alone air-flight, and the wind won't blow to let you sail. What's more, it's deliberate. Angry goddess Artemis is telling your wronged monarch's brother there'll be no sailing till he offers her a sacrifice. Not any old sacrifice, but his eldest daughter, Iphigenia.
What do you, if you're King Agamemnon, do when the personal and the political so crucially clash?
Euripides, long ago, worked out the problem (or almost did - his script's unfinished, to our knowledge) in one of two plays about this unfortunate young woman, Iphigenia in Aulis. In her taut reworking (which doesn't follow the outline imagined above) Edna O'Brien introduces a Catholic tone, and focuses the issues of mankind and fate in terms of male and female world experience.
Clytemnestra, Mrs Agamemnon, had a bad press from the (OK: dead, white, male) Greek Tragedians.O' Brien convincingly shows the woman and mother she was. As Lisa Dillon's fair-haired child Iphigenia rushes straight from the sheltered world of bedroom pillow-fights (white feathers showering out in ironic pre-figuring of bloodstains to come) to embrace the father she's not seen for ages, her mother stands happily watching.
It's at the suspicion of her husband's intention that Clytemnestra slowly backs away in disbelief then recoils from him. Her anger mounts till, in Susan Brown's finely-delineated characterisation, it becomes a complex of anger and horror. Then, in the final moments (O' Brien's invention) the notion of killing Agamemnon on his return from the war Iphigenia's death has enabled, comes to her. In relief, the clouds of emotion fall away, her voice acquiring a sweet, peaceful resolution.
The idea comes, this being effectively Greek Tragedy, from an external agency. Hayden Griffin's white towering wall (here Aegean, but it could serve for Lorcalike Mediterranean) includes a raised aperture where Joanna Bacon's awkwardly amplified Witch has prophesied. But now her place is taken by the anonymous Sixth Girl. Picked out from the Chorus, she's an intriguing creation: a very individual voice replacing the Chorus speech, the adapter's voice offering Agamemnon a choice. Loving her might betray his wife, but it would save their daughter and offer peace not war.
Though it's a powerful voice, in Charlotte Randle's vivid playing, it's one that has to play in contrast to the men of war. A vibrant young individual offering love, as opposed to an anonymous mass demanding leadership for their now-raised bloodlust.
Lloyd Owen's deep-voiced Agamemnon goes with a pallid, undecided physical presence, not likely to face-down an armed navy. John Marquez, eventually wielding the huge knife for the human sacrifice aimed at returning his wife, gives a controlled desperation to Menelaus which dignifies without making over-sympathetic.
The other men make little impact, in dialogue or playing and seem to be of less interest to O'Brien, whose script deploys them functionally. Anna Mackmin's pacy, fiery yet tonally varied production is superb: theatrically full of flair and true to the script's dramatic contours.
She keeps the big effect for the near-end: a procession to the sacrifice then a sudden Chorus of heads looking over the tall rear ramparts in judgment, set against a suddenly reddened skyline.
I'd love to see her production of Euripides' Iphigenia plain, but this reworking justifies its place in a Crucible season where, to date, every production has been an event.
Witch/Nurse: Joanna Bacon
Calchas/Menelaus: John Marquez
Old Man: Jack Carr
Agamemnon: Lloyd Owen
Sixth Girl: Charlotte Randle
Iphigenia: Lisa Dillon
Clytemnestra:Susan Brown
Messenger: Dominic Charles-Rouse
Achilles: Ben Price
Chorus: Kristin Atherton, Olivia Bliss, Veejay Kaur, Francesca Larkin, Charlotte Mills, Kitty Randle, Stacey Sampson, Rachael Sylvester, Andrew Hawley, Martin Ware
Director: Anna Mackmin
Designer: Hayden Griffin
Lighting: Oliver Fenwick
Sound: Huw Williams
Composers: Benn Ellin, Terry Davies
Choreographer: Scarlett Mackmin
2003-02-22 11:11:46