This is a seven minute summary of the four hour Greek drama called The Oresteia - the masterwork of Aeschylus. The entire staging is available from www.MacMillanFilms.com
It tells the story of what happens to Agamemnon, after he returns, from winning the 10-year war at Troy. His beautiful wife Clytemnestra is waiting for him with every outward sign of affection and longing.
The original audience didn’t give a damn about Agamemnon. The Greeks had just invented Democracy – Agamemnon is a tyrant from their distant past. The only reason the audience, and you, should paid any attention to Agamemnon, is because he is a metaphor for the state – for democracy. Everything in Greek drama is pregnant with meaning.
The chorus of old men, hope that Clytemnestra has forgiven Agamemnon for past violence – they tell the back-story of how war requires depravity – using an analogy of two eagles and a pregnant hare. A messenger arrives with news of Agamemnon’s approach…
Soon he will be home – and she will have her way with him. 10 years of pent-up yearning – she wants everything to be perfect – Look she is laying out the original “red-carpet” for him – an ocean of sacred peplos garments – priceless – profane. The central action of the drama is the debate (or agon) between them – reasoned argumentation is at the heart of every Greek drama – Will she convince him to walk out on this profanity?
Oh, yes – but in her haste to have her way with him – Clytemnestra has not forgotten – her husband’s concubine. No, no, she pops back out to invite Cassandra to join them at the alter.
The beautiful daughter of King Priam – now Agamemnon’s sex slave – has the gift of foresight – she knows they walk to their doom – but no one comprehends her words.
Agamemnon is soon crying out... and Clytemnestra rolls out on the ekkyklêma to gloat over his dead body and that of Cassandra.
It is now that we learn that Clytemnestra - has not been chaste at all. In fact she boasts of enjoying 10 years of adultery with - her lover Aegisthus – her husband’s enemy.
And in a breathtaking scene – this power couple assert that they will now rule in Argos as king and queen. And anyone who objects with soon be brought to heel - with a heavy yoke about their neck. So ends the first of the 3 plays in the Oresteia.
The second play begins unexpectedly in a cemetery – the children of Agamemnon meet over the tomb of their murdered father. They learn that his funeral was a further desecration …
They get to work plotting their revenge. Orestes elicits Electra’s complicity in a scheme (which pulls in the other household slaves).
Orestes (with his trusted friend Pylades) will pose as travels and once they have pleaded for hospitality – food and shelter in the palace – they will violate Xenia and slaughter their hosts. It is a heinous plan – but it works – and after a little trepidation before slitting his mother’s throat - Pylades speaks-up for the first time – and Orestes commits matricide.
The ekkyklêma wheels out once more – but this time things are different - instead of gloating – and Orestes asserting that he will now become king and master of his inheritance – he reels from psychosis and runs off stage. So ends the second drama of the Oresteia.
The staging features Peter Arnott's vivid line-by-line translation and the acting talents of Tanya Rodina, Morgan Marcum, Elena Shiskina, Olya Gubanova, Georgia Kate Haege, Kelly Addyman and James Thomas.
