On Friday, I was in San Jose to see Aeschylus’ Oresteia, performed by the company of Leonidas Loizidis. It was a small traveling production—the group has been performing the trilogy at the Kirk Theater in New York for a while, and is traveling for some selected dates now—with Philip Constantine as Agamemnon, Aegisthus, and Orestes, and Eftychia Papadopoulou as Elecra and Cassandra.
Having never seen ancient theater performed, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect—let alone the fact that the play was performed in Greek (modern), which I don’t know, with English subtitles that weren’t always kept in sync with the actors. That said, I was very surprised by how very much I enjoyed it, and the glimpse, however minor and imprecise, of what ancient theatrical performances must have been like. The acting, of course, was much more romanticized than ancient theater probably would have been, and was done without masks. But I was surprised that Loizidis worked in elements of singing and dance that were present, at least in some degree, in ancient Athens. Also, although I couldn’t tell if the modernized Greek was in verse, the English was, and I suspect the Greek was at stylized to at least some degree. (The only modernization that was a little too much was that Orestes kills Clytemnestra on stage—when, of course, in ancient Greek theater, nothing interesting ever happens on stage; you’re just told about it.)
Two things stood out. The first was Eftychia Papadopoulou’s performance, especially as Cassandra, in Agamemnon. After Agamemnon enters the castle, Cassandra remains outside, bewailing her fate and psychically envisioning the murder taking place inside. If this sounds a little boring, well, it reads that way too. But in performance, Papadopoulou was riveting. Her long, beautiful monologue was performed with such charismatic energy that one could instantly see how serious this performance really was going to be. The tension and terror evoked, even in words I could not comprehend, were so genuine—almost tangible—that I could immediately understand why Aristotle considered tragedy “an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude...through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions,” and why ancient drama had so much in common with music. Papadopoulou’s performance in this scene was particularly operatic in its density and seriousness. She is simply a fantastic actress.
That scene seemed to me the highlight of the evening, but it was by no means the only one; the entire trilogy was performed with an intensity of purpose that made one forget the scenery, the props, and the fact that all the male roles were performed by only two men. (Philip Constantine was outstanding in the three or four roles he played—for each, he developed an entirely different body language and tone of voice appropriate to the character, so that one hardly noticed the limits on the production.) The use of the chorus was not intrusive or awkward, as it is in some performances (rendering unwatchable, for example, the famous Tyrone Guthrie version of Oedipus; same with the Don Taylor version) but was evocative and powerful—their creepy dance around the blood-spattered Clytemnestra, for instance, winding themselves in the red streamers attached to her robe, or the way they orbited characters like electrons as if symbolizing their threatening emotions.
I went expecting it to be an interesting and instructive experiment, but not a particularly entertaining evening. Instead, I got a taste of the emotional intensity that authentic ancient Greek theater must have brought with it. Trilogies like the Oresteia were usually capped off by a comedic play at the end, and now it’s clear why—they really do generate a power that must be dissipated in some way—a purgation of the emotions of pity and terror.
But if you don’t speak the language I would very much recommend reading a translation before going.
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