Radio review: The Oresteia - The Furies

When I started listening to and reviewing Radio 3's 2014 Oresteia earlier this week, I suggested a couple of practical reasons why we don't really see theatres staging it as three separate plays, instead usually getting a playwright to create a single epic out of them. Getting to the end of the trilogy, it also suggests how on an artistic and storytelling level it would make quite an unusual experience for modern audiences. Of course one reason the jump from one play to the next is quite jarring is that this production took the idea of treating them as separate plays to its natural conclusion, entrusting each to a different writer. Rebecca Lenkiewicz takes over for The Furies, with Sasha Yevtushenko directing as Orestes (Will Howard,) who was last seen fleeing the titular ancient goddesses because he murdered his mother (in revenge for her murdering his father, in revenge for him murdering their daughter,) arrives at Apollo's temple in Delphi for sanctuary.

Apollo is of course the god who told him he had to avenge his father in the first place, but apart from putting the Furies to sleep so Orestes can get a head start, and eventually testifying on his behalf, he doesn't seem to want much to do with the latest chapter in the saga. One thing I really liked about Lenkiewicz' take on the play is how shifty Joel MacCormack's* Apollo is: He insists that if Orestes hadn't avenged his father's murder the Furies would have been after him anyway (they in fact say that as Agamemnon and Clytemnestra were related by marriage, not blood, that particular killing was none of their concern,) and washes his hands of arbitrating on Orestes' fate, passing the responsibility to Athena (Chipo Chung,) who until that point has had nothing to do with the story and can be an independent judge.

If Simon Scardifield gave us a more expansive take on Agamemon and Ed Hime was more traditional with Libation Bearers, Lenkiewicz goes somewhere in between, sticking to only the same story beats as Aeschylus but expanding the storytelling style to include a narrator (Niamh Cusack) describing the places the action moves to: The Furies is unusual in Greek tragedy in changing location from Delphi to Athens part of the way through, and the playwright takes that opportunity to add some scenes of the chase in between, letting us get to know both Orestes and the Chorus (Polly Hemingway, Maureen Beattie and Carolyn Pickles) along the way. This trio are the leaders of the Furies but we're given to understand there's a whole army of the creatures backing them up.

Having been in a production of The Oresteia at university as part of my course, I come to it with a lot of baggage about the way it's historically been interpreted, as a celebration of specifically Athenian democracy‡ or more generally the triumph of the patriarchy over the matriarchy. It's the latter we see here, as the Furies are, technically, consulted over the fact that they're stripped of their centuries'-old function and buried under Athens as its new protectors, but the goddesses clearly see it as a devastating loss that's been imposed on them. The actual title of the third play is Eumenides, one of the names for the Furies, and although I can see why you'd go with a title that immediately tells the audience who they are, it's a shame because the more literal translation Lenkiewicz uses elsewhere in her script, The Gracious Ones, is more on-theme: As creatures baying for blood, calling them The Gracious Ones was an inaccurate name but one used out of fear and respect, lest describing their true function brought down their wrath. But in the course of the play they are forced by the new gods to take on exactly that role of gracious protectors that suppresses their true nature and strips them of their power.

What's odd about listening to this version of the trilogy in sequence is that, where Agamemnon was haunted by Iphigenia and Libation Bearers hardly mentioned her, her name's completely absent from The Furies. Clytemnestra's murder is only talked of in the context of her killing Agamemnon, not the wider cycle of violence it's part of. And that may be the point - violence begets violence, the reasons don't really matter and unless someone steps in to stop it there will always be a next chapter of bloodshed. But it's still a hard shift of focus to take in as a modern listener. Also odd is the way this play in itself completely ditches the story of Orestes once the judgement comes in: It's almost as if the whole trilogy has been a trap to catch the Furies and force them out of their power, and the ending focuses entirely on their fall. It's certainly an interesting angle but after a play where Lesley Sharp's ghost of Clytemnestra has been popping up to demand her own son's damnation it's a weird way to drop the ongoing story.

I think listening to this has clarified some more reasons that a single epic adaptation makes more sense on stage, but it's certainly had its interesting points, and some angles I'll probably be watching from when the next stage version comes along - the last major London productions were in 2015, so maybe we're due a fresh interpretation?

The Oresteia - The Furies by Aeschylus in a version by Rebecca Lenkiewicz is available on BBC Sounds.

Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes.

Image credit: BBC.

*MacCormack of course went on only the following year to play Orestes in the Globe's production.

‡the people of Athens get to vote on Orestes' guilt, although in the event of a tie Athena gets the deciding vote, making her the Shirley Ballas of the Olympians.