Blood flows freely in grim Greek tragedy

Fierce enough ... Sophie Ross and Zindzi Okenyo. Reviewer rating: Rating: 30 out of 5 stars Reader rating: Rating: 25 out of 5 stars (22 votes) Genre Theatre ORESTEIA TOM WRIGHT'S renderings of ancient Greek dramas have resulted in some of the most gripping acts of theatre we have seen on Sydney stages in recent years. In his Women of Troy tapped the power of Euripides' tragedy to harrowing and ultimately thrilling effect. But that was in cahoots with the director Barrie Kosky, whose choreography of the horror show was scintillating. Here Wright does the lot and the result is conspicuously dour. A trilogy in its original form, Aeschylus's Oresteia is boiled down to two acts: the first roughly 90 minutes, the second an hour. Act I tells of the homecoming of the victorious Agamemnon with his trophy, the prophetess Cassandra. Both are murdered by Agamemnon's wife Clytemnestra (urged on by lovercousin Aegisthus), in revenge for Rosetta Stone German Agamemnon's sacrifice of her daughter. The second act is devoted to the return of Agamemnon's son Orestes, who triggers the final spasms of the curse on the royal house of Atreus by uniting with his estranged sister Electra to kill Clytemnestra. Advertisement: Story continues below Playing on an opened-out and near empty grey-black stage, the set (Alice Babidge) is basically three elevator doors. They allow for strong entrances (the introduction of Aegisthus in Act I, Apollo's visitation in Act II), quick exits and grisly reveals (the bloody corpse of Agamemnon). They also house the play's offstage murders, which are made dimly visible through the semi-opaque glass of the sliding doors. Melding the poetic with the colloquial, Wright's language is dense and sinewy but there's insufficient depth in the casting to make it sing. Zindzi Okenyo's Clytemnestra is fierce enough and Richard Pyros delivers an entertainingly louche Aegisthus. The shaven-headed Cameron Goodall's damaged soldier and his urbanely thuggish Apollo grab the attention. Lengthy chorus passages (Ursula Mills, Alice Ansara, Sophie Ross) are clearly spoken but anaemic somehow, never rising much beyond earnest recitation, even when supported by Max Lyandvert's spectral soundscape.

Posted in: Rosetta Stone,Rosetta Stone Outlet,rosetta stone software,Rosetta Stone V3