Ruth Leon recommends … Free Agamemnon’s daughter

Ruth Leon recommends … Free Agamemnon’s daughter

Ruth Leon recommends

norman lebrecht

June 28, 2021

The Oresteia – Theatre for a New Audience – Aeschylus
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June 28 & 29 are last performances:  Free

This production begins streaming continuously starting at 7PM Friday, June 25 and will be available for 96 hours until 7PM on Tuesday, June 29, at which point the video will expire. You can watch at any time within this 96 hour period.

You’ll have to hurry if you want to catch this one as it’s only streaming until Tuesday and I haven’t seen it yet, but I think, on the evidence of the casting, it’s probably worth it.

The Oresteia is based on the three plays by Aeschylus – Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides. They are among the oldest plays in the Western canon and consist of the only surviving trilogy from the ancient Greek theatre.

Due to the epic nature of the story and length of the original text, The Oresteia is rarely performed in its entirety, but Ellen McLaughlin’s version of the trilogy has been adapted into one sleek and fast-paced evening of theatre with a modern resonance. The Oresteia is the story of the House of Atreus.

The story begins with Agamemnon’s slaughter of his daughter, an act committed in the name of martial duty and pious sacrifice, but deemed unforgivable by his wife, Clytemnestra, who is undoubtedly one of the most primal and psychologically complex figures in all of literature. Her act of vengeance in turn sets in motion once more the bloody cycle of that family’s history and the events that follow cast a harsh and penetrating light on any assumptions we like to make about civilization and the nature of human justice. What does history demand? What is justice? What do we owe each other? The Greeks ask all the toughest questions.
This Oresteia is directed by Andrew Watkins, the large cast includes Kathleen Chalfant.

Read more here

Comments

  • John Borstlap says:

    I always thought that the Atreus family was somewhat unhinged. Therefore they were a great example of Western civilization.

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