It’s often said that the quintessential American play concerns the dysfunctional family. If so, it must be conceded that the Greeks, as they have in so many things, got there first 2500 years ago.
To name two glaring dysfunctional-family examples: Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and Euripides’ Medea. Then there’s the hands-down cake-taker: the three linked plays often referred to as The House of Atreus and just as often as Oresteia.
That’s the trilogy – Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, Eumenides – wherein Agamemnon, to get the Trojan war underway, sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia. He then returns from the successful campaign to be murdered by furious wife Klytemnestra, who in turn is done in by vengeful son Orestes, who’s hounded for his crime until his life is imperiled.
As it sadly happens, the Oresteia is the only three-pronged Greek canon work to survive intact through the intervening years. And there are those who might wonder how much longer they’ll survive when handled by contemporary artisans intent on offering their own response to the trio of tragedies.
Which brings up the current Oresteia, sent from London’s Almeida Theatre to the Park Avenue Armory (with the already seen Hamlet). It’s billed as “Oresteia, after Aeschylus, adapted by Robert Icke.”
And properly billed. Director-adapter Icke has done what it’s highly likely many Greek playwrights did during the fifth-century BCE: create their own versions of popular myths for plays long lost and forgotten.
Icke’s dysfunctional Atreus unit starts before Aeschylus’s. Agamemnon (Angus Wright), Klytemnestra (Anastasia Hille), Elektra (Tia Bannon), young Orestes (Wesley Holloway, alternating with Hudson Paul), and Iphigenia (Alexis Rae Forlenza, alternating with Elyana Faith Randolph) are at a mostly loving family dinner.
All changes quickly when Menelaus (Peter Wight) arrives to convince Agamemnon that for the greater good he must sacrifice his adored Iphigenia. Eventually acceding – Icke doesn’t fool around with the myth that much – Agamemnon soon confronts, and is confronted by, Klytemnestra, which sets their devoted marriage on the rocks. Just about where Iphigenia’s destiny lands.
But not quite. While following the myth with general respect, Icke introduces several elements of some note. His chief purpose seems to be establishing Klytemnestra as far more sympathetic than she is in Aeschylus’ vision. The choice also has her lover Aegisthus (Wright, doubling) as practically a supernumerary here.
The pre-teenage Iphigenia doesn’t leave stage for her sacrifice, but in plain audience view drinks two potion (interrupted by a bitter pill that end her life rather prettily). The young Orestes is a crybaby. When he grows up (Luke Treadway), brooding over his unfortunate circumstances, he remains something of a teary momma’s boy.
Throughout this Oresteia, a suspended news strip reports several exhibits (letters, a knife and the like) for the final Eumenides trial. Icke’s (shallow?) notion is that the audience is the jury. (During each actual performance, the strip also announces time of death that characters meet their makers, those fun-loving Greek gods.)
Is Orestes guilty or not of what he contends is justifiable homicide? I have to say, Icke makes this something of a hung jury. Much of the new Oresteia he’s conjured is fascinatingly provocative. Just as much or more is pretentious and silly. When Agamemnon asks Iphigenia to sing for him, she obliges with the Beach Boys chart-topper “God Only Knows.” (Strains of Nick Lowe’s “The Beast in Me” are aired, too.)
Though Iphigenia doesn’t grab a mic when singing, this is a modern-dress production (same set and seemingly many of the same costumes Hildegarde Bechtler provided for Icke’s Hamlet). It’s a multi-media treatment as well in the now familiar Ivo van Hove tradition, with cameramen occasionally monitoring the principals on three screens and a television interview featuring Klytemnestra praising the returning Agamemnon. (Tim Reid is the video designer.) It’s also a modern-day-language version, meaning the f-word is heard in one form or another. (If a Greek word for it existed back then, I don’t know it. Does Icke?)
Icke’s actors are first seen at the trilogy’s opening moments when they walk on with great deliberation, face the patrons (and eventual jurors), and hold the pose for close to a minute – as if in a dignified spin on Madonna’s “Vogue” and the “strike a pose” instruction. Instantly, Icke sets the evening’s tone, which could be described as stately or static-y, depending on an individual spectator’s inclinations. Slow-walking is definitely one behavioral strategy.
Without question the bravura turn is Hille’s. She reaches her highpoint when celebrating the freedom Klytemnestra feels after snuffing her homicidal husband. She’s something to see and certainly hear. Wright, Treadway, young Forlenza (at the performance I saw), Bannon, and Hara Yannas as an extremely emotive Cassandra are all dramatically formidable.
Lending creative weight to the proceedings are lighting designer Natasha Chivers and sound designer Tom Gibbons. They reach their peak with a frightening display immediately after Iphigenia is killed. The storm they ratchet up is meant to represent the long-awaited wind released for Agamemnon’s journey to Troy, but the papers blown furiously about also represent the civil destruction unleashed.
Normally, when liberties are taken with classic material, the liberty takers intend to make a statement about the present. Icke does it when Agamemnon is told he must consider “country over family.” If loosely thought about as the need to put ”country over party,” there’s Icke’s message for now – in this country at the very least.
Oresteia opened July 26, 2022, at the Park Avenue Armory and runs through August 13. Information and tickets: armoryonpark.org
