Theatre review: Elektra

My second star-led Sophocles in the space of a week provides some interesting points to compare and contrast with Oedipus: Both revivals use translations that stick pretty closely to the rules, format and structure of the original conventions. But where that show was dominated by its visuals, this one is all about the sounds. And while anyone unfamiliar with Greek mythology will get a pretty clear telling of the story South of the river, they'll probably find themselves in somewhat muddier waters in the West End. Celebrity Dairy Product Brie Larson leads Daniel Fish's production of Elektra as the daughter of Agamemnon who's in mourning for her father, murdered by her mother Clytemnestra (Stockard Channing) and her lover Aegisthus (Greg Hicks.) This is the part of the myth that's covered in the middle play of the Oresteia, but here it's entirely told from Elektra's point of view, and she's leaving out some fairly important details.

Theatre review: Oklahoma!

Regular readers of this blog will both know I traditionally have certain reservations about musical theatre pioneers Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein II - namely that if it weren't for the famous and beloved tunes, their work would fall somewhere between "horribly dated" and "nightmarishly distressing" and not get staged anymore. One of their shows I hadn't seen before - I don't think I've even seen the film - is their original, genre-defining hit Oklahoma! But Daniel Fish and Jordan Fein's production, which transfers to the Young Vic from New York, promised to come with a radical, twenty-first century reimagining of the musical Western about farmers trying to squeeze a bit of singing and dancing in between the relentless dry-humping. Because Fish and Fein's approach to the show is to dispense with any euphemisms and cuteness, and strip it down to a story about people who just want to have sex with each other (whether or not the other party is entirely consenting, because Hammerstein.)