Rarely do the fundamental ingredients of theatre declare themselves so compellingly in a formal structure of sounds, pulsations, and rhythms of voice and body. Rarely are we reminded so effectively that the literal meanings of words share their dramatic value with the actual sounds they make as they are spoken. Sophokles’ Elektra, sharply translated for simultaneous and potent realities by Anne Carson and directed in a gripping once-in-a-lifetime fashion by Thomas Moschopoulos, is such a ritual of many theatrical elements.
This naturalistic ritual –is this a new genre?- is staged at the intimate Patterson Theatre and blends the domestic and the cosmic, the primal and the civilized. It mates singing and screams, alternates the lyricism of dance and awkward jerky motions of passion. It moves unrelentingly with steady momentum and high wired tension, both of which are breathtaking. Throughout there is always a pulse beaten by hands or stamped down by staff or feet, and always an impending cry implicit or wailed. Words are spoken for meaning like a heartbeat, lines are shaped or sung, and each method seems a natural communication of the reality into which it seduces us.
The chorus enter individually from among the audience and remain either a group of individual personalities or one well-textured voice with one personality. The chorus members serve many purposes. They provide a wordless humming atmosphere for the play or syncopated chants about specific characters, serve as friend or critic in condemnation of the individual speakers, function as conscience. The harmonies and cadences of the chorus give the production dramatic textures, especially when punctuated by the movements of physical bodies present in each scene.
Carson’s translation is richly colloquial and precise with poetic bluntness. Try these: “At what point does the evil level off in my life?” or “Evil is a presence that shapes us to itself” or “You shall not die on your own terms” or “The sum of evil will be less” or “Idiot, get it over with.” The bluntly clinical and defiantly pure set by Ellie Papageorgakopoulou features seven vertical poles of lights on each of two sides, while elevated on three small platform altars are sections of a body, King Agamemnon’s and one per elevation. The lighting and sound designs of Itai Erdal and Kornilios Selamsis further cause one’s senses to overlap
Yanna McIntosh is Elektra, and her intensity never wavers until, in anticipation of the deaths of and Aigisthos and Clytemnestra, she can declare to her brother Orestes that “Your will and my will are one.” This Elektra is charged with senses and feelings, is also poignantly passionate about her brother, and when she seems suffocated in her existential condition, she seems she might break all boundaries of pain with her tormented words. “Let me go mad in my own way,” she cries and seems to explode with her guts.
The Clytemnestra of Seana McKenna seems worn out by inner torment, pulled inward with teeth gritted, slightly hunched with tension, and even her skin is drawn tight. She is something of a bitch wanting out and her grievance, she tells Elektra, concerns another daughter sacrificed by “that murdering thug, your father.” Even her fashionable suit seems to squeeze her in. Another distinct standout is Peter Hutt as Old Man whose delivery expresses a remote sneer as he glides through every phrase with innuendo of contempt or criticism in him. We heed him for he speaks for yet another dimension of the human psyche.
Meanwhile, Laura Condlin as Chrysothemis is made of physical exuberance and vocal passion waiting to burst, as they do in her declaration that “the evils multiply.” Condlin seems an energy made of her own volition, full of contradictory impulses. The Orestes of Ian Lake is at times made of less mythic and more of an everyday resonance, so both he and Condlin give balance, from a more human domain, to the prevailing fatalism. As the smugly confident Aigisthos, Graham Abbey compels both the siblings and audience to await the demise of this distasteful creature without conscience. With E. B. Smith as protective Pylades, we have a physically assertive presence who seems to inhabit a will of his own. We pay attention to him.
In all, this confident production of Elektra is consuming theatre, one that claims attention as it unsettles, one that surprises with gutsiness and quirky imagination, one that thrills with its bold and eclectic nature. The range of human experience it presents claims possession of one’s imagination and doesn’t let go. Because antiquity and our modern era are addressed as one sensibility, this production is uniquely unforgettable as an all-embracing ritual of human existence. I saw it five days ago and still haven’t caught up to its impact.