Anastasia Hille
in Oresteia, Park Avenue Armory, 2022
Photo: Joan Marcus
Oresteia
By Deirdre
Donovan
Aeschylus’ Oresteia is
the kind of work that makes most directors go weak in the knees. Not
Robert Ickes. British writer-director Ickes has grabbed
the bull by the horns and astonishingly reworked the tragic trilogy for contemporary
sensibilities. His Oresteia, currently running in
repertory with Hamlet at the Park Avenue Armory,
is not only a successful realization of the ancient Attic work, but it
features a top-drawer cast, led by the radiant Anastasia Hille, as
Klytemnestra.
Although purists may object to Icke’s jettisoning of the Chorus and
displaying brutal bloodbaths onstage, those who like their Greek
tragedies served up with bite will find a feast in Icke’s epic-scale work
that clocks in at three and a half hours, with two intermissions and
a pause.
The trajectory of Icke’s work broadly follows the outline of
Aeschylus’ Oresteia, which is comprised of Agamemnon, The
Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides. While
his Oresteia draws mostly on Aeschylus’ triptych, Icke also
has deftly incorporated elements from
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Sophocles’ Electra, and
Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis. The result? Icke gives us a
richly integrated work that tells the whole story of the family’s violence
and suffering throughout the decade-long Trojan War.
If you haven’t had time to brush up on Aeschylus’ Oresteia, no
worries. Ickes’ retooling of the trilogy is endowed with
clarity and can get one up to speed with the story in no
time. Indeed, it is extraordinary to watch the chain
of murders--the filicide, patricide, and matricide--all play out
against the backdrop of Hildegard Bechtler’s black-and-white set, lit by
Natasha Chivers.
Anastasia Hille,
Angus Wright, and Elyana Faith Randolph in Oresteia, Park Avenue Armory,
2022
Photo: Joan Marcus
Tim Reid’s video design is spot on. It effectively complements
the dramatic action without overpowering it. When we see
Wright’s Agamemnon being interviewed about the war on a giant screen early
on, it shows his character to be quite the canny politician. It
also makes the Trojan War seem like it’s happening in our own backyard and
that its outcome is still up for grabs.
The acting is excellent. Anastasia Hille’s performance as
Klytemnestra is spell-binding. Hille, with her regal
physical stature and fire in the stomach, simply seems born to play
this part.
No, Hille’s not the only watchable actor on stage. Angus
Wright, doubling as Agamemnon and Aegisthus, projects the commanding
presence of the Greek leader and the craftiness of Klytemnestra’s lover.
Luke Treadaway’s Orestes conveys both the angst and the courage of a young
man whose family inheritance has placed him between a rock and a hard
place. While Treadaway’s Orestes intermittently appears during
the first half of the play, he becomes the central figure later on
when the courtroom trial begins.
Wesley Holloway,
Anastasia Hille, Angus Wright, Elyana Faith Randolph, and Luke Treadaway
in Oresteia, Park Avenue Armory, 2022
Photo: Joan Marcus
Tia Bannon’s Electra is the epitome of a young woman desperately
struggling to cope with life’s cruelty and yet caught in the web of
family revenge. “We’re not the model family of the modern major
general,” remarks Electra to Agamemnon’s ghost as she sits at the
family table.” Bannon’s Electra delivers these lines with
all the vinegar in her soul. Yet we can’t help but admire her
witty twist of Gilbert and Sullivan’s lyrics.
Kudos to the two youngsters in the company, Elyana Faith Randolph and
Hudson Paul, as Iphigenia and young Orestes, respectively.
Randolph’s Iphigenia will tug at your heartstrings with her childish trust
and preternatural stoicism during her murder
scene. Indeed, one could hear that proverbial pin drop in the
Wade Thompson Drill Hall as the lethal drug dose was clinically
administered to her in three pleated paper cups.
Spared his stage sister’s fate, Paul effortlessly slips into the skin of
the Young Orestes, showing us the undaunted spirit of his character
that will later on anchor him as an adult.
Admittedly, this production has a flaw in the crystal. Why
isn’t the reason for Agamemnon’s killing of Iphigenia explained clearer? While
some will “get it,” others will be puzzled why the seer Calchas (Michael
Abubakar) and Agamemnon keep discussing “signs” and the windless
weather as they plan Iphigenia’s murder. True, this is nit-picking
Icke’s work. But his yoking together of Aeschylus’ trilogy does
leave a few holes in the tragic narrative.
What makes this production hum is its vibrant immediacy. We get the
feeling that the horrors of war playing out in the world
of Oresteia is not unlike those which are happening in Ukraine now.
Indeed, that phrase in Icke’s adaptation, “The child is the price of the
war” seems like it could have been coined for the Ukraine
war. After all, so many young Ukrainian children, like the
character Iphigenia, have lost their future.
Icke isn’t the first writer who has given us a trilogy inspired by Attic
playwrights. Anne Carson penned An Oresteia based on
Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, Sophocles’ Elektra, and
Euripides’ Orestes, which was staged at the Classic Stage Company
in 2009. And, of course, Eugene O’Neill wrote his
play cycle, Mourning Becomes Electra, as an American update
of Aeschylus’ trilogy set in a Puritan New England town at the end of the
Civil War. But, that said, Icke certainly is the most
recent writer to attempt this high-wire act. And, he succeeds, by and
large, by steering clear of pretentiousness and focusing on emotional
realism.
It’s not for nothing that Ickes has been referred to as the great hope of
British theatre. His Oresteia at the
Armory clearly cements his reputation in the theater world and adds a
fresh feather to his cap. Although it’s not for
the weak-stomached, his new adaptation of Aeschylus’ trilogy is a
must-see for all serious theatergoers.
Through August 13th.
At the Park Avenue Armory, Manhattan.
For more information, visit armoryonpark.org.
Running time: 3 hours 30 minutes, with two intermissions and a pause.
