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Electra review – great irony in her manner and iron in her soul Electra review – Kristin Scott Thomas prowls the stage with intensity
(about 2 hours later)
Why has Greek drama enjoyed, as Edith Hall points out in the programme, an unprecedented revival in the past 30 years? I suspect it’s partly because these old plays chime with our own experience of war and revenge killings. They also provide star-parts for actors; and there is no doubt that the big draw here is the chance to see the impressive Kristin Scott Thomas escape from her familiar, elegantly groomed contemporary angst.Why has Greek drama enjoyed, as Edith Hall points out in the programme, an unprecedented revival in the past 30 years? I suspect it’s partly because these old plays chime with our own experience of war and revenge killings. They also provide star-parts for actors; and there is no doubt that the big draw here is the chance to see the impressive Kristin Scott Thomas escape from her familiar, elegantly groomed contemporary angst.
She plays Electra: a woman steeped in visceral hatred of her mother, Clytemnestra, who killed her beloved father. But it’s a measure of Sophocles’s even-handedness that he neither condones nor condemns Electra’s vengefulness: indeed he goes out of his way to give Clytemnestra right of reply by allowing her to argue that she murdered Agamemnon in retaliation for his sacrifice of Iphigenia.She plays Electra: a woman steeped in visceral hatred of her mother, Clytemnestra, who killed her beloved father. But it’s a measure of Sophocles’s even-handedness that he neither condones nor condemns Electra’s vengefulness: indeed he goes out of his way to give Clytemnestra right of reply by allowing her to argue that she murdered Agamemnon in retaliation for his sacrifice of Iphigenia.
Frank McGuinness’s excellent translation, commissioned for the play’s last major revival in 1997, also makes us ponder the purity of Electra’s motives: when she asks her mother, “Why are you bedding the man who killed my father?” you get a whiff of the subterranean sexuality that Jung dubbed the “Electra complex”.Frank McGuinness’s excellent translation, commissioned for the play’s last major revival in 1997, also makes us ponder the purity of Electra’s motives: when she asks her mother, “Why are you bedding the man who killed my father?” you get a whiff of the subterranean sexuality that Jung dubbed the “Electra complex”.
The great danger is that Electra can seem an exhausting monomaniac. But Scott Thomas, prowling round Mark Thompson’s circular stage in front of the palace at Mycenae, lends the role colour and variety. With her shorn, straggly hair and hempen robe, there is no doubting her physical anguish; and one of her first actions is to bury her face in the sand as she rages at the “adulteress” from whom she has briefly fled. But Scott Thomas also suggests there is irony in Electra’s manner as well as iron in her soul. She’s not afraid to get a laugh when, speaking of her brother, she says “I’ll turn to dust waiting for Orestes” and, when her mother entertains a servant who has brought news of Orestes’s supposed death, she sardonically announces “her welcome was not cold”.The great danger is that Electra can seem an exhausting monomaniac. But Scott Thomas, prowling round Mark Thompson’s circular stage in front of the palace at Mycenae, lends the role colour and variety. With her shorn, straggly hair and hempen robe, there is no doubting her physical anguish; and one of her first actions is to bury her face in the sand as she rages at the “adulteress” from whom she has briefly fled. But Scott Thomas also suggests there is irony in Electra’s manner as well as iron in her soul. She’s not afraid to get a laugh when, speaking of her brother, she says “I’ll turn to dust waiting for Orestes” and, when her mother entertains a servant who has brought news of Orestes’s supposed death, she sardonically announces “her welcome was not cold”.
Scott Thomas is always intensely watchable: she is especially good at suggesting the thwarted mother in Electra by nursing the urn apparently containing her brother’s ashes as if it were a baby. But, while Scott Thomas does nothing wrong, she occasionally does a bit too much: it’s a psychologically perceptive study of a spiritually wounded woman full of passionate intensity that lacks only the element of stillness. “It’s time to act,” a servant says at one point. There is also a time when it is sufficient just to be.Scott Thomas is always intensely watchable: she is especially good at suggesting the thwarted mother in Electra by nursing the urn apparently containing her brother’s ashes as if it were a baby. But, while Scott Thomas does nothing wrong, she occasionally does a bit too much: it’s a psychologically perceptive study of a spiritually wounded woman full of passionate intensity that lacks only the element of stillness. “It’s time to act,” a servant says at one point. There is also a time when it is sufficient just to be.
But, although Electra dominates the play, the virtue of Ian Rickson’s production is that it gives due weight to the other characters. Diana Quick is allowed to put the case for Clytemnestra as someone driven by lust for justice rather than just lust, Jack Lowden makes the returning Orestes seem almost naively innocent in his matricidal quest and Peter Wight as the old servant who facilitates the final murder weights every word with care and precision. What, one may still ask, has the play got to do with us today? I suspect the answer lies in Scott Thomas’s final gesture – the most moving thing in the evening – which suggests that even downright revenge is accompanied by a feeling of remorse and regret.But, although Electra dominates the play, the virtue of Ian Rickson’s production is that it gives due weight to the other characters. Diana Quick is allowed to put the case for Clytemnestra as someone driven by lust for justice rather than just lust, Jack Lowden makes the returning Orestes seem almost naively innocent in his matricidal quest and Peter Wight as the old servant who facilitates the final murder weights every word with care and precision. What, one may still ask, has the play got to do with us today? I suspect the answer lies in Scott Thomas’s final gesture – the most moving thing in the evening – which suggests that even downright revenge is accompanied by a feeling of remorse and regret.
• Until 20 December. Box office: 0844 871 7628. Venue: Old Vic, London• Until 20 December. Box office: 0844 871 7628. Venue: Old Vic, London
• Kristin Scott Thomas as Electra – in pictures