Orestes 2.0
ORESTES 2.0 Cry Havoc and Griffin Independent at the SBW Stables, 17 February-13 March 2010.
Kate Revz, artistic director of indie company Cry Havoc, reckons there’s nothing new under the sun and she prefers to steep herself in the old texts. Then she came across American playwright Charles Mee who not only adapts and reworks ancient texts but makes them freely available on his website. Hence her production of Orestes 2.0.
Euripides wrote the original in 408 BCE and it’s at once startling and depressing to realise that little has changed in human behaviour since. If anything it’s got worse as we obstinately refuse to learn a single damn thing from history.
Lest you’ve forgotten: Agamemnon, the king, is dead – murdered by his wife Clytemnestra. The god Apollo has advised their son Orestes (Guy Edmonds) to avenge his father’s death by killing his mother. His sister Electra (Annie Maynard) encourages the move and it is done. As Orestes 2.0 opens, the matricidalist is not only full of remorse but has also discovered that despite Apollo, local Athenian politics is much more likely to determine his fate. And the masses, being prone to hysterical media beat-ups, are calling for his blood; Electra’s too.
Salvation is at hand, however, because their uncle Menelaus (Nicholas Eadie) is about to arrive home with his trophy wife Helen (Gemma Pranita) after the Trojan wars and loot gathering in Egypt. He’s expected to sort something for Orestes and Electra. Menelaus is media-savvy, however, and quickly works out that it’s not in his best interests to go against the herd. The best on offer is that Orestes and Electra can choose the method of their suicides. Electra isn’t crazy about this and an alternative scheme is hatched with the assistance of Orestes’ creepy pal Pylades (Anthony Gooley): to kidnap Helen and her daughter Hermione and threaten Menelaus with their deaths – unless he helps the siblings escape Athens.
Toss into this tale of Happy Families some contemporary references such as the medical torture of patients/prisoners, TV culture and a kind of Motown take on the role of nurses in classic drama, and you have two hours of entertaining mayhem. Beneath the farce is a solemn moral core, however, despite a few unnecessary OTT touches (if you’re going to have someone wearing a TV set as a head, it should be done in such a way that he doesn’t have to hold it up with both hands). Flaws and clunks notwithstanding, Orestes 2.0 is an adventurous and imaginative effort by a new(ish) company that promises much for the future.
The performances are sustained and convincing, particularly Maynard as Electra. The set and costumes (Lucilla Smith) and Billy Cheeseman’s lighting/AV are downright superior with a formerly splendid Georgian-stripey wallpapered palazzo in rack and ruin and dominated by a surreal wreck of a once-splendid ancestral bed.
At its heart Orestes 2.0 asks a question put by director Revz in her program notes: “Can we, as a civilisation, rise to the challenge of peace?” As is observed in the play itself, we “speak nicely and act barbarously”. The production is entertaining and provocative and this kind of ambition and achievement has to be applauded and encouraged.
