Elektra

One thing I’d say for the translator of this Elektra, Canada’s award-winning poet and classical scholar Anne Carson: she certainly managed to remove the poetry. The final speech of the chorus in one very old translation that I like, for instance, is “O house of Atreus, through how many sufferings hast thou come forth at last in freedom, crowned with good by this day’s enterprise!” Carson’s final speech has the Chorus Leader say, “You have won your way through to the final line!”; and the chorus then repeats, “The final line, the final line, the final line, the final line, the final line!” End of play.

Sophocles’ great drama has the simplest plot of any “Elektra.” The long-lost Orestes returns with his companion (and sometimes, in modern treatments, his boyfriend) Pylades, a king’s son. With them is Orestes’ former tutor, the Old Man who saved him as a boy. They plot the destruction of Queen Clytemnestra who, with her lover Aigisthos, killed King Agamemnon.

Agamemnon had sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to the goddess Artemis to allow the Greek troops to continue to Troy, so his wife took a lover and killed him on his return. Princess Elektra openly defies her mother and had saved her brother Orestes by giving him to the Old Man. She is badly treated and prays for Orestes’ return. Orestes hides and observes with Pylades. The Old Man tells Clytemnestra that Orestes is dead, showing her an urn which supposedly holds Orestes’ ashes. The Queen rejoices, Elektra continues to defy her, and brother and sister – Orestes and Elektra – are reunited. Orestes, Pylades and the Old Man defeat the Guards and Aigisthus, and Orestes goes in the castle to kill the Queen. All rejoice on his return.

There are no gods or avenging Furies after Orestes. This is a tragedy with an almost happy ending.

Famed Greek director Thomas Moschopoulos’ reworking of the great Sophoclean tragedy is nothing if not inventive. His physical stagings are often strikingly surprising and ceremonial, seeming to willfully deprive the audience of the expected dramatic effect. But often they verge on the nonsensical and even ludicrous – especially in choreographer Amalia Bennett’s movement which appears unrelated to, or deliberately working against Kornilios Selamsis’ generally haunting, ritualistic music.

Presumably, the designs by Ellie Papageorgakopoulou are subservient to the director’s vision, but I don’t understand the peculiar effects of some of her costumes, which undercut the clear dramatic intent of the scenes. Orestes is mostly seen wearing nothing but a version of tighty-whities, his semi-nudity therefore can suggest vulnerability or object of desire.

Elektra is traditionally meanly garbed, often in rags, because her mother, the Queen, punishes her for her open hatred and rewards her sister who supports the Queen. Elektra’s “rags” throughout become an ugly suit: an ill-fitted black jacket and skirt with a lot of buttons and a loose white shirt hanging out from under the jacket. She also boasts a disarranged hairdo and a distracting pair of black sunglasses.

When Elektra takes control and gets her revenge, she fixes her hair and pulls off all but the skirt, which becomes a sexy black gown. But then, at the triumphant ending, Elektra returns to messed-up hair and glasses – to what purpose? And when he reveals himself as the supposedly dead Orestes and defeats his enemies and takes charge, the hero Orestes dons a white shirt, long, hanging black necktie, and cute light brown shorts – an outfit which makes him look like a schoolboy.

One of this production’s fascinating conceits is the physical treatment of Orestes as a kind of boy-toy. He is traditionally the long-awaited hero who will free Elektra and avenge Agamemnon’s murder. But here we not only see him almost naked but also almost inactive.

Pylades is played by huge, black E. B. Smith, who not only turns Orestes’ buddy into his bodyguard, but also literally lifts and carries Orestes from place to place. Until he reveals himself a long time later, Orestes watches the scenes with Elektra from a coffin-like stone box which we see his bare torso peep out of from time to time. Until he goes into the castle to kill Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, Orestes is fairly helpless-seeming. Ian Lake makes him a handsome hero, though. And E. B. Smith seems a very concerned and very formidable guardian-warrior – an unusual approach to Pylades.

Seana McKenna, a great actress, looks stunning in a tailored cream-colored suit, wide-brimmed hat over blonde hair, jewels and glamour make-up as Queen Clytemnestra. She actually looks something like Meryl Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada.” Unlike Prince Orestes and Princess Chrysothemis’ one or two helpers, Clytemnestra is carried about by a phalanx of servants who lift her from platform to platform so that the Queen’s feet never touch the ground. McKenna makes such treatment seem expected and ordinary, and her arguments defending Clytemnestra’s murder of her husband and mistreatment of Elektra are offhand and persuasive-seeming.