ORESTES: RE-EXAMINED To 3 October.
London.
ORESTES: RE-EXAMINED.
Southwark Playhouse Shipwright Yard Bermondsey Street SE1 2TF To 3 October 2009.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat 3pm.
Runs 1hr 20min No interval.
TICKETS: 020 7407 0234.
www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 26 September.
A clear vote in favour of this vigorously-imagined new ‘classic’.
Besides being the only complete trilogy known from Classical Greek Tragedy, could Aeschylus’ Oresteia also be the most historically significant? The action shifts from a Watchman awaiting King Agamemnon’s return from the long war “high on the windy plains of distant Troy” to the trial by jury ending play three, and seems to encompass mankind’s move from prehistory to history.
Primitive revenge changes, by Athena’s divine ordinance, to rational argument. One strength of this re-realisation of the final drama is to question that development, at least in political matters.
After Orestes has been re-examined, with cases by defence and prosecution (itself the reverse of modern juridical order), the audience votes on his fate; in a modern version of Athenian voting practice, we each place a metallic ball in a plastic tube.
They stacked up this time in Orestes’ favour. It was logical, but doubts almost immediately arose. A raging Orestes in chains is different from the same man free to act as he wishes.
Then we remember how this started, in Southwark Playhouse’s bar; how we were smilingly greeted and given VIP Badges plus a presentation about the new Argos, set to soporific music, in tones that might have been selling time-shares in an Argive paradise, by one of Orestes’ supporters. Then his aides are called away, the presentation breaks down, the speaker being abducted by a dirt-encrusted, feral-seeming horde. We follow, ensured no harm’s intended.
So to the main space where Orestes stands chained, and where on a long strip of earthy floor, the rebels rage against smooth-talking authority-figure Menelaus. Logical argument is his strong terrain. Set against the male-dominated Authority-figures, the largely female Rebels express their feelings through emotion, and the solidarity of group movement.
Neither is necessarily ‘right’; which can be the problem with the either/or decision of guilt or innocence. But articulate reason tends to come off best. In showing this, Full Tilt Theatre Company, from Bath Spa University’s Performing Arts Department, reinvent the Eumenides (as they apparently have the earlier Oresteia plays). Though individual performances vary in technique, this is a vigorously urgent company show.
Orestes: Matthew Howard.
Menelaus: Adrian Francis.
Athena: Laura Fautley.
Electra: Kitty Randle.
Deputy to Menelaus: Filip Krenus.
Ensemble of Rebels: Florence Battersby, Sarah Calver, Joanna Defendi, Shani Erez, Alessandra Fell, Saraah Fullagar, Cassandra Harris, Chloe Hooton, Amy Newton, Clare Quinn, Marie Rabe, Kitty Randle, Chiara Stampone, Rebecca Travers, Natasha White, Andrew Wisbey.
Authorities: Ishani Basu, Aimee Farey, Kit Lessner, Grace Miller, Luke Murphy, Peter Peasey, Robert Timbrell.
Director: Emma Gersch.
Designer: Alexandra Kharibian.
Lighting: Alex Musgrave.
Composer: Katherine Hare.
Movement: Kitty Randle.
Dramaturg: Brittany McComad.
Assistant director: Andrew Beckett.
2009-09-28 23:03:40