When the ancient Greeks went to the theatre they would already know the myth. They would want to see what the dramatist had done with it. The Oresteia is not Aeschylus’s tragedy, which premiered in 458BC in Athens at the Festival of Dionysos when it won first prize. It’s a radical reimaging of the play by Robert Icke. Purists may wonder what has happened to the Chorus, the Furies and Klytemnestra’s affair with Aegisthus.
Icke directs his three-and-a-half-hour version and places the emphasis firmly on domesticity; and to make the sacrifice even more chilling, he casts an endearing little girl (Clara Read) as Iphigenia.. Icke also gives the play a modern political and media context. Agamemnon and Klytemnestra are interviewed on television. There are excellent performances by Angus Wright and Lia Williams as the anguished parents. Jessica Brown Findlay makes her stage debut as Electra.
“I am here,” says Orestes (Luke Thompson), “to make things right.” But putting things right means an unending cycle of murder and revenge. What should society do with fathers who kill their daughters and sons who kill their mothers? The Athenian court in the last act tries to establish what actually happened. Will Orestes be found guilty or not guilty? How would you vote if there were a tie and you had the casting vote?