Radio review: The Oresteia - The Libation Bearers

I'm continuing to fill this live theatre-free week with the 2014 Radio 3 adaptation of Aeschylus' Oresteia, which saw the cast continue in their roles but the writing and directing duties pass to Ed Hime and Marc Beeby respectively for the middle play in the trilogy, The Libation Bearers. Some years after the murder of Agamemnon, his son Orestes (Will Howard) secretly returns from exile to leave an offering at his father's tomb. There he's reunited with his sister Electra (Joanne Froggatt,) who along with the titular Chorus of slave women (Sheila Reid, Amanda Lawrence, Carys Eleri) is also there to leave a tribute. But this is on the behalf of their mother Clytemnestra (Lesley Sharp,) who's acting in fear after having a prophetic dream - these offerings are a paltry attempt to make up for murdering her husband.

But Orestes too is acting on a prophecy: The god Apollo has warned him that if he doesn't avenge his father's death he will be hunted down by the Furies. The Catch-22 is that this revenge includes killing his own mother, which is also a crime that the Furies will want to punish.

I said before that I was interested in the idea of each part of the trilogy being treated entirely separately, and that's exactly what happens here: Whereas Agamemnon expanded on Aeschylus' treatment of the story to take in the background not all of the audience might know, and more importantly put Clytemnestra's actions in context, Hime's The Libation Bearers is a much more straightforward retelling of the original play. As such it's a bit of a jarring change in our sympathies to have Clytemnestra monstered by everyone and Agamemnon held up as such a paragon (even by the Chorus, who lest we forget were enslaved by him.) From a modern perspective, the entirety of the Oresteia as written is something of a love letter to the Patriarchy, and where Simon Scardifield chose to tell his part of the story with a more even-handed approach to Clyetemnestra, Hime instead puts the original's misogyny out there for all to see. Not only is she treated as unforgivable for killing her husband (Agamemnon's murder of his daughter is barely mentioned,) but the misogynistic language is peppered throughout, even by the many female characters, and Clytemnestra's second husband is insulted as "bitch-titted Aegisthus."

Ultimately the fact that this sticks so closely to the original formula - and Greek tragedy done by the book can be pretty dry - made it less of an interesting listen for me, but what is fascinating is comparing the different approaches so far. Rebecca Lenkiewicz was given the final play, and I look forward to hearing whether she also went for something wildly different from her predecessors' choices.

The Oresteia - The Libation Bearers by Aeschylus in a version by Ed Hime is available on BBC Sounds.

Running time: 1 hour.

Image credit: BBC.