Review
An Oresteia
Classic Stage Company
March 29, 2009
Morgan Wycks
mwyhcks@nyconstage.org
In the CSC's look at the House of Atreus the three principle original Greek dramatists who wrote of these bloody deeds results in a jarring if often rollicking good time. The title of this venture is An Oresteia which includes Aeschylus' "Agamemnon', Sophocles' 'Electra' (both directed by Brian Kulick and Gisela Cardenas), and Euripides' 'Orestes' (directed by Paul Lazar).
'Agamemnon' and 'Electra' have in some ways been given straight-forward productions. The set by Riccardo Hernandez looks like a mock-up of an ancient fortress with giant doors that swing open and when closed have sliding panels to reveal certain secrets. Liberties have been taken to help individualize the Chorus (a mistake in my book) and ample amounts of blood spill across the togas and diaphanous robes as well as pour down the walls of Atreus (lustily correct). The lead in these two plays is Stephanie Roth Haberle as Clytemnestra and though some could complain that she steps over into campiness and occasionally suggests a gangster's moll high on liquor, I found her performance delightful (a word rarely associated with Clytemnestra). I've always thought of the role as a girl from the wrong side of the Parthenon with a quickly learned overlay of patrician elegance. Tall, lean and eloquent, Ms. Haberle basks in the queen's power and bloodlust and certainly reels in the pleasures of watching her plans play out. It's a wild performance. In the second installment ('Electra'), Annika Boras in the title role displays that the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. Steely and resolved like her mother, Electra goes for the jugular, only with hate instead of delight. Both productions, however, are rather sloppy in their staging and the very uneven cast doesn't support the bent-on-revenge performances of the two ladies.
When we get to 'Orestes' , director Paul Lazar takes a 180 degree shift away from the previous two. Deconstructed and pulled into contemporary times, the final blows of the trilogy become comic but nevertheless as arresting as the melodramatic predecessors. The Electra in this case (Annika Boras adjusting appropriately to the new motif) sounds like a late-nite radio hostess fielding questions from a loony public. Menelaus (a terrific Steve Mellor) appears as a fat cat general ripe for despotism. Then there is David Neumann who plays Helen of Troy (not funny) and a eunuch slave (very funny) while in the title role Mickey Solis fares betters in the more traditional Sophoclean 'Electra'. Though Mr. Lazar has a wild imagination, the world here being part Orwellian and part Twyla Tharpian, I'm not sure I understand what he's going for. Still, it captures an essence of Greek tragedy that many productions sadly miss.
As I've said before, I think the Greeks need to be left alone for awhile since every playwright these days looks to them for inspiration for their next commissions. But at least here the interpretations as a whole revitalize that particular cradle of civilization.
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