The Oresteia Review – The Tragedy of Simon Stone is fascinating and heartbreaking | Theater

Aeven the writer-director Simon Stone called his play the Oresteia, the record indicates that this is a play “after Aeschylus and Others”. Aeschylus is known here, especially in the most faithful, and most effective, first of the three parts. But “others” are also important, with many shades of Greek tragedies thrown in, from Antigone to Medea, and perhaps even Oedipus Rex.

Agamemnon’s surrender of his daughter, Iphigenia, followed by his murder by his wife, Clytemnestra, and later by their vengeful son, Orestes, are transformed into modern family life. There is Christopher (David Morrissey), who runs a technology company, his wife Montie (Mary-Louise Parker), an American alpha type, and their children: Augie (Tom Glynn-Carney), Isabel and her twin, Alice (Rosie Sheehy). He is so lucky that he talks about Bollinger as a cooking wine, and lives in a house that has the corporate appearance of a luxury hotel.

The material of Antigone comes through the image of Isabel, from Iphigenia, who is very unselfish and a political activist who fights against the patriarch whose company has been involved in the sale of weapons to countries including Russia, and whose bombs have recently killed a group of children. All My Children?). But the most interesting is the cutting of the time of Aeschylus. His cycle of violence takes us to the murder of the murderers and ends with the Eumenides, a description of social order and law. Here the murders are told before the drama, the detective follows Augie’s vengeful character.

The story moves around time, from pre-Brexit Britain to the days of the pandemic and today. The comeback story is still, surprisingly, able to go beyond persistence and catch. But there is no fixed idea, nor of the characters who are trapped in the machines of inevitable doom. Maybe it’s because we don’t know them deeply. Like a TV show, the action grabs you, but the plot doesn’t leave much room for imagination.

There is a lack of internal thought in the plot and smooth, clear characters. Montie is angered by her husband’s commitment and Parker gives her strength, but you don’t know her intentions. Are they killing on purpose, on purpose or out of anger? He seems to be doing all three at different times. She and her lover, Jerome (John Macmillan), drunkenly kill Christopher but this calms Montie’s anger. It’s as if Stone doesn’t trust the stone coldness of ancient Greek drama to destroy his world. Christopher is a man of incredible compassion, he has let go of his guilt, beyond forgiveness, and Morrissey plays him wonderfully.

There are no gods here to intervene (although there is Christopher’s attractive brother, Melville, played by Lloyd Hutchinson) and Christopher is given a lot to get out of the book. He did not kill his daughter, so all the consequences of this first death are not mutually exclusive in terms of motivation and moral consequences.

The other characters are interesting but thin: Sloaney’s self-promoting Alice, albeit comically in Sheehy’s hands, while Augie’s transformation into a veteran and serial killer is too ordinary to feel true or tragic.

There are good, reliable references to the Greek theater lovers, but it feels like a story within a story and it comes down to not thinking about the novel, it’s just the chase. Domestic violence is exacerbated in Britain: the Anglo-Saxons appear to represent “attack after attack”. Modern wars are mentioned – Afghanistan, Ukraine, Syria, Chechnya – although there is a surprising difference in the current conflicts in the Middle East.

In Lizzie Clachan’s stunning scenery, we see the couple inside their round house, the rooms exposed, the escapes visible. It is a very practical use of the Stone glass box. The sarcasm is also good, but it seems that it is about to send the family in charge, and there is a lot of humor along with the tragedy. In the third act, it starts to resemble a police method. There is a sense that these characters are trapped in their unchanging lives, and a feeling, finally, that we are here with them.

It’s draining, inspiring, frustrating, original and ersatz, and thrown in a lot: Aeschylusthen others.