[THEATRE] Agamemnon, Arts Theatre, 13th October 2010

[tamaranth]

The Cambridge Greek Play
Mary Beard on not going to see Agamemnon

This was my first experience of Greek tragedy in the original Greek (with English surtitles, albeit rather clunky ones). I knew the story: Agamemnon returns triumphant from Troy to his wife Clytemnestra, who (with the aid of her lover, Agamemnon's cousin Aegisthus) murders him in the bath. I wasn't familiar with the text, so hadn't realised just how much Clytemnestra, 'the woman with a man's brain', is demeaned and mocked for being a woman and therefore lesser, unreliable, weak.

Ha! Take that, Chorus!

Interesting things about this production:
- Cassandra, most of whose lines were sung rather than spoken: the music (composed for this production by Alex Silverman) reminded me of Strauss (Richard) or some other late C19/early C20 opera. Phoebe Haines has a gorgeous dark mezzo voice, perfect for anguish.
- Iphigenia represented by a yellow dress and a bouquet of yellow roses
- punning on the 'Hell' in 'Helen' (which anef tells me is a reflection of original Greek pun on Helen's name and destruction / war).
- Clytemnestra's libations of champagne, dripping down onto the corpses
- the grey-faced chorus members
- Agamemnon at first almost faceless between war-helm (?anachronous horsehair-crested, a la centurion) and scarf.

I kept thinking about layers. Words separate from sound (the rhythm and flow), in turn separate from meaning (because the words spoken meant nothing to me apart from the occasional echo of a familiar root, and my meaning came via the surtitles); then the layer of the production, modern dress and lighting (and actors) coupled with words that have been spoken, exactly these words, for thousands of years.

Comments

[anef.livejournal.com]

Michael's dictionary of quotations helpfully gives the original "helenaus, helandros, helepolis" or "destroyer of ships, of men, of cities". Incidentally Cassandra's opening words are also a pun - "O Apollo, my destroyer" - in the original "destroyer" is "apollon".

[dorispossum.livejournal.com]

If you think the Agamemnon's a misogynist play, try the Eumenides (no.3 in trilogy) - Orestes is acquitted by a citizen's jury of murdering Klytemnestra, on the grounds that there is no genetic relationship between mother and child - mothers are merely 'nurses' of male seed(!)

I guess we're 'lucky' to live in a culture of 'misogyny-lite' rather than its full-on brother. ho ho

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

Pretty much every translation I've read makes an attempt to reproduce the pun.

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

I had originally planned to go to this, but didn't get myself organised - and in the end couldn't hav e gone anyway. Did you get a programme? Could you send me a copy?

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

Sorry, we didn't get a programme ... but I think the programme matter is available via the play's website, link above.