The Oresteia

‘The Oresteia’ is the remaining 5th century Greek trilogy by Aeschylus, part four was lost. Directed by Gita Bezard and Kathryn Osborne, it is a Duck House presentation showing at 8.00 pm each evening in The Blue Room, Northbridge until the 10th May. We join the Furies, Alecto, Magaera and Tisiphone, who have been banished to the worst part of the underworld. They sing and play with their snakes, as they wallow in blood. A telephone rings and we are taken back a couple of months to the return of Agamemnon (Alissa Claessens) from the 10-year Trojan wars. He is accompanied with Cassandra his new lover. Greeted by his, apparently still loving wife, Clytemnestra (Sarah McKellar), who wants to kill him for sacrificing their daughter Iphigenia. In the House of Atreus, whilst in the bath, she hacks him to death. Cassandra, who is still outside, and despite being a clairvoyant and seeing the many previous killings in the Palace, she enters and also dies. Clytemnestra is warned that Agamemnon’s son, Orestes, will return and seek revenge. Clytemnestra is back with Aegisthus (Fran Middleton), the lover she had whilst her husband was at the wars. She has a horrifying nightmare involving a snake, so in the morning, convinced this is the revenge of Agamemnon she orders her daughter, Electra, to curse her father’s grave. On arriving at the grave, Electra meets a man who turns out to be her brother who was sent away from the family home as a child. Orestes and Electra, combine forces and plot revenge on their mother and her new husband. Orestes kills his mother, but on leaving the palace is plagued with hallucinations. He sees the Furies, who go on to haunt him because of his crime against a blood relative (his mother’s murder of her husband was not that of a blood relative). Distressed Orestes goes to see Apollo to seek advice on how to be free of the Daughters of Darkness. Apollo quells the Furies – but cannot totally free him - then sends him to Athens with Hermes. Orestes has a frightening trip as the Furies follow the smell of his dead mother’s blood still emanating from him. There is a court case, Orestes versus the Three Furies. Will it be a happy ending? Or will Orestes continue to suffer? Greek tragedies can be as dry as dust and hard to follow, but with superb directors like Gita and Kathryn, this contemporary version was filled with energy, humour, imagination and action. The performances of all three actors was wonderful, all had several characters to play. Fran had the glint of a mean Daughter of Darkness, Alissa must have suffered more than Orestes and Sarah performed her regal part with an astonishing Windsor accent. The few props were used inventively. Good lighting. I went expecting a heavy night and came away smiling and uplifted. Loved it.