Time Present and Time Past: The Oresteia

&Tab;&Tab;<div class&equals;"wpcnt">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div class&equals;"wpa">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<span class&equals;"wpa-about">Advertisements<&sol;span>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div class&equals;"u top&lowbar;amp">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<amp-ad width&equals;"300" height&equals;"265"&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab; type&equals;"pubmine"&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab; data-siteid&equals;"111265417"&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab; data-section&equals;"2">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;amp-ad>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;div>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;div>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;div><p><b>Sean Sheehan<&sol;b><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>It is over a century since Einstein established that the perception of time depends on an observer’s position but at Trafalgar Studios in Whitehall there is only one time – and it is registered by the hour&comma; minute and second as displayed in digital format above the stage and in the foyer&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;londonglossy&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;09&sol;Eve-Benioff-L-Williams-A-Wright-Ilan-Galkoff-in-Oresteia&period;-By-Manuel-Harlan-e1443614240418&period;jpg"><img src&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;londonglossy&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;09&sol;Eve-Benioff-L-Williams-A-Wright-Ilan-Galkoff-in-Oresteia&period;-By-Manuel-Harlan-e1443614240418&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Eve Benioff&comma; L Williams&comma; A Wright&comma; Ilan Galkoff in Oresteia&period; By Manuel Harlan" width&equals;"600" height&equals;"400" class&equals;"aligncenter size-full wp-image-80341" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>There are three intervals during the play – of fifteen&comma; ten and three minutes – with each one ending on the second &lpar;and strictly no admittance if you’re late&rpar;&period; During the actual course of the performance&comma; the precise time of a character’s death also appears on the stage clock though&comma; at the macro level&comma; the Oreseteia is crucially concerned with the inheritance of a time past&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;londonglossy&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;09&sol;Jessica-Brown-Findlay-and-Angus-Wright-in-Oresteia&period;-By-Manuel-Harlan-e1443614292525&period;jpg"><img src&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;londonglossy&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;09&sol;Jessica-Brown-Findlay-and-Angus-Wright-in-Oresteia&period;-By-Manuel-Harlan-e1443614292525&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Jessica Brown Findlay and Angus Wright in Oresteia&period; By Manuel Harlan" width&equals;"600" height&equals;"399" class&equals;"aligncenter size-full wp-image-80342" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Agamemnon’s act – reluctantly persuaded to try and end a war by obeying a divine injunction to kill his own young daughter – reverberates across the years to come&colon; the future cannot escape the past&period; The filicide is traumatic for his wife and himself and it only seems to be the case that time has healed the wound of a daughter’s sacrifice when Agamemnon’s wife triumphantly greets him upon his return from the battlefield many years later&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The consequences are bloody and this leads to their son&comma; Orestes&comma; finding himself having to wrestle with persecutory voices that demand retribution for a crime committed when he was a child&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>This haunting story of time and retribution is dramatized with boldness and imagination in Robert Icke’s adaptation of Aeschylus’s Oresteia&comma; a play first performed in Athens some two and a half thousand years ago&period; Aeschylus was a renowned playwright in his own lifetime&comma; winning prizes and plaudits for his work and this twenty-first-century production has also garnered some five-star reviews from theatre critics &lpar;&OpenCurlyQuote;This is Greek tragedy filtered through &OpenCurlyQuote;The Sopranos’ … &lbrack;making you feel&rsqb; as if you have electrodes wired into your soul’ exclaims one awestruck reviewer&rpar;&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>It is easy to see why this production impresses&colon; the actors give their all&comma; electrifying their roles with displays of passion that grip modern audiences&comma; though in ways that would have puzzled the ancient Greeks&period; Aeschylus did not write a searing domestic drama and he did not engage in psychological portrayals of his characters but here we have the former Downton Abbey star&comma; Jessica Brown Findlay&comma; playing the part of Electra and becoming a figment of the tortured imagination of her brother Orestes&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>There is no chorus – this integral part of every ancient Greek drama replaced by a single therapist – and the stage design is daringly modern by employing sliding panels that are transparent or opaque depending on what the director wishes the audience to behold&period; Aeschylus’s text is freely and radically adapted&comma; replacing the grandeur and imagery of the original with emotionally charged dialogue and a contemporary&comma; post-Freudian and feminist sensibility&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>For more information about bookings&comma; please visit&colon;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;atgtickets&period;com&sol;venues&sol;trafalgar-studios<&sol;p>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div style&equals;"padding-bottom&colon;15px&semi;" class&equals;"wordads-tag" data-slot-type&equals;"belowpost">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div id&equals;"atatags-dynamic-belowpost-68ed2e49b762e">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<script type&equals;"text&sol;javascript">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;window&period;getAdSnippetCallback &equals; 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