Reviews 2012
Reviews 2012
✭✭✭✭✩
by Sophocles, translated by Anne Carson, directed by Thomas Moschopoulos
Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Tom Patterson Theatre, Stratford
August 11-September 29, 2012
“A Powerful New Elektra”
Stratford’s current production of Sophocles’ Elektra may be the most imaginative production of a Greek tragedy the Festival has ever presented. Greek director Thomas Moschopoulos has the cast not merely speak but chant and sing the text that immediately creates an aura of otherness and ritual about the action on stage. Greek designer Ellie Papageorgakopoulou puts the actors in modern dress so that a fascinating tension arises between the familiar and the strange throughout the play.
When you enter the Tom Patterson Theatre, the stage looks like a museum with three long rectangular tables of equal size with built-in illumination one with the head, one with the torso and one with the legs of a larger-than-life-sized sculpture of an ancient Greek warrior. A brown carpet mottles to make it look like earth contradicts the notion of a museum by suggesting we are outside. That is confirmed by huge door at the upstage end of the stage outside of which are piled garbage bags of broken pottery as if the owners has tried to clear the house of the past. The stage is separated from the audience by a metal fence of two stands of wire, the fence posts providing illumination of the stage, one of many effects of Itai Erdal’s precisely calculated lighting.
Though the statue is never identified, we can assume it represents the Agamemnon, King of Mycenae. By the way it is presented we see the statue has been both broken and preserved – that that, indeed is a perfect symbol of what separates Elektra from her mother Clytemnestra. (The production uses Canadian poet and classicist Anne Carson’s translation where she spells the title character’s name in the usual English fashion as “Electra”.)
Agamemnon had gathered the fleet of Greek ship to sail from Aulis to Troy, but he had incurred the wrath of Artemis, who refused to send wind so the fleet could sail. Oracles determined that only if Agamemnon sacrificed his eldest daughter Iphigenia could they sail. Agamemnon did so with great reluctance, but the wind began and the fleet sailed to Troy not to return for ten years of the Trojan War. During that time the anger of Agamemnon’s queen, Clytemnestra, grew as she plotted with her lover Aegisthus to kill Agamemnon upon his return.
This they did and banished Iphigenia’s brother Orestes, the rightful heir to the throne, for fear of his revenge. This leaves Orestes’s sister Elektra alone to preserve the memory of her father and to long for Orestes’ return and revenge upon Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.
As the play begins the Old Man (Peter Hutt), who had been sent toke Orestes (Ian Lake) away, has returned with the boy now grown to a man. He tells Orestes and his friend Pylades (E.B. Smith) that he will announce to Clytemnestra that Orestes has died to give the queen false hopes and thus make her less prepared for their attack.
The majority of the play consists of Elektra (Yanna McIntosh) venting her rage against her mother and fantasizing about revenge, all the time cautioned by the Chorus, here consisting of seven women, of the dangers of excess of anger. Elektra is angered, too, that her Chrysothemis (Laura Condlln) has decided to continue with life leaving Elektra the one only to honour their father’s memory and cultivate fury against his murderers. Chrysothemis and the Chorus chide Elektra that she has allowed her life to stop, but the Old Man’s arrival and announcement of Orestes’ death plunges Elektra into despair as much as it elevates Clytemnestra (Seana McKenna) to joy that she is finally free.
Designer Papageorgakopoulou has carefully gradated the three principal women. Elektra, like Hamlet, is clad entirely in black, wearing trousers, clunky boots, and an overlarge sweater and glasses. She has deliberately made herself unattractive since no man will have her love until her father is avenged. Clytemnestra, in contrast, appears like a relic of the 1950s with skirt suit, headscarf, high heels and sunglasses. Chrysothemis, who view avers between the two, wears a colourful pantsuit and sunglasses, but her pants have sails of fabric attached to give ten the appearance of a skirt when she moves.
The Chorus is given differentiated outfits but all in the palette of greys and beiges, some printed with Greeks letters and texts. This is one of the few modern productions of a Greek tragedy where I actually did feel that the Chorus served to amplify the emotions on stage and acted as a mediator between the actors and the audience. In the Choral sections, one of the women would establish a rhythm by beating one of the tables, pounding a staff or even striking herself to lead the rest to chant the text. At others times the chant would break into beautiful song with exotic harmonies and melismata thanks to composer Kornilios Selamsis. The Chorus movement, often involving a principal actor is brilliantly choreographed by Amalia Bennett to look both spontaneous and ritualized at once. To have the Chorus present its statements in song and dance harkens back to the practices of ancient times.
Moschopoulos also has the principals use speech, rhythmic chant and song to express themselves with song reserved for the more intense emotions. Despite the modern dress, this unusual mode of delivery enhances the idea of tragedy as a ceremony which it was and of the action as happening both in our time and outside which is exactly where myth lies. Moschopoulos thus provides the audience with a heightened, deeply considered experience of Greek tragedy unlike anything the Festival has presented before.
All of the actors are well cast. McIntosh brings her usual intensity to the role and uses her noticeably stronger singing voice to great effect. Condlln is perfect as her lighter-minder, wavering sister who finally, if fearfully, allows herself to be won over to Elektra cause. Ian Lake gives one of his strongest performances so far as Orestes and suggests by his stunned reaction to other after the murder that reflection on the deed will soon bring his mind to madness.
Peter Hutt gives a powerful chanted account of Orestes’ gruesome death at a chariot race, but it would be a benefit to his character as Orestes’ protestor if he could dispel a certain ironic, dissolute tone in his voice. Seana McKenna is the one actor who seems to have stepped in from an entirely different style of play – one relying more on wit than brutality. While this jars to some extent it does emphasize that she thinks she is entirely different from al those around her.
Anne Carson’s modern verse translation from 2001 is remarkable for finding the poetry in natural speech. Occasionally, a colloquial phrase will strike an unwanted comic note on stage, but it is otherwise overwhelmingly sinewy, vivid and forceful. Carson has not only translated Aeschylus Agamemnon and Euripides Orestes, four of Euripides’ seldom performed plays – Alkestis, Herakles, Hekabe and Hippolytos. It would be great if the Festival would engage Moschopoulos again to bring these lesser-known plays to life and broaden our knowledge of ancient Greek drama through the exciting, visceral experience he so effectively can create.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: Yanna McIntosh and Laura Condlln. ©2012 Cylla von Tiedemann.
For tickets, visit www.stratfordfestival.ca.
2012-08-20
Elektra