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THE ORESTEIA. By Aeschylus, in a new version by Ted Hughes. Royal National Theatre, Cottesloe Theatre, London. 15 January 2000.
Before his death in 1998, Yorkshire poet Ted Hughes finished his version of Aeschylus' powerful trilogy The Oresteia. For its premiere at the Royal National Theatre, director Katie Mitchell divided the trilogy into two parts. Part one, subtitled The Home Guard, consisted of a mostly uncut Agamemnon, while part two, The Daughters of Darkness combined cut versions of The Choephori and The Eumenides. Mitchell's interpretation of Hughes' text, which lasted nearly six hours, completely abandoned the notion that ancient Greek drama must be granthose, mysterious and culturally alien.
Hughes' poetic text was written in bold, intimate English and confronted philosophical issues with an unabashed directness. Repeated words and phrases added to the relentless vengeance pervading the trilogy and suggested that inward, private thought and public rhetoric were inexorably linked. Hughes' chorus invited the authence to contemplate the moral, public world, asking about God and goodness. In Mitchell's production the chorus looked at the authence and waited for answers to their questions. Rather than give way to emotions the authence of this production was asked to think about ideas and was implicated in the action of the play. The cast entered in a neat line and slowly looked at the authence with both curiosity and doubt. They crossed the stage and stopped to gaze again as...