Simon Stone's The Oresteia, currently playing at the Bridge Theatre in London, is a three-part drama that reimagines Aeschylus' ancient cycle of violence in a modern, metropolitan setting. While the play is credited as being "after Aeschylus and Others," it deviates significantly from the original, incorporating elements from other Greek tragedies such as Antigone, Medea, and even Oedipus Rex. The result is a patchwork that is both supremely gripping and exasperatingly disjointed.
Modern Family, Ancient Crimes
The story follows Christopher (David Morrissey), a tech company CEO, his wife Montie (Mary-Louise Parker), and their children: Augie (Tom Glynn-Carney), Isabel, and her twin Alice (Rosie Sheehy). The family is so privileged that they use Bollinger as a cooking wine and live in a house resembling an upmarket hotel chain. Agamemnon's sacrifice of Iphigenia is echoed in Christopher's role in selling military equipment to countries including Russia, leading to the deaths of children—a nod to All My Sons.
Stone cuts up Aeschylus's chronology, with the killings reported before they are dramatised. A detective follows the avenging figure of Augie, and the story shuttles back and forth in time from pre-Brexit Britain to the pandemic and the present. Despite this reverse storytelling, the production manages to sustain tension and grip.
Powerhouse Performances and Flawed Characters
Mary-Louise Parker delivers a powerhouse performance as Montie, but her character lacks internal logic. She kills her husband while drunk, undercutting her clear-eyed anger. According to the review, "It is as if Stone does not trust the stone-cold emotions of an ancient Greek drama to fire his narrative world." David Morrissey's Christopher is strangely sympathetic, resigned to his guilt, and played with lugubriousness.
Other characters are entertaining but thin: Alice is indulgently self-flagellating, while Augie's transformation into a dead-eyed killer feels generic. The play lacks a sense of inexorability, and characters are not deeply known, leaving the psychological element shallow.
Dazzling Set and Social Satire
Lizzie Clachan's dazzling set features a revolving home with exposed rooms, effectively using Stone's hallmark glass-box. The social satire is on point, verging on sending up the ridiculously entitled family. However, by the third act, the play begins to resemble a police procedural, and the cycle of violence expands into Britain's own history of invasion. Contemporary wars are mentioned—Afghanistan, Ukraine, Syria, Chechnya—but the current conflict in the Middle East is puzzlingly omitted.
The production is draining, invigorating, frustrating, original, and ersatz, with too much thrown at it. The Oresteia runs at the Bridge Theatre until 19 September.
