Word: clytemnestras
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Like all the Greek tragedies, Electra is divided into heroes, gods and women. Here, the gods are remote, the hero Orestes largely absent, and it is the women who seem demoniacally possessed. Before the play begins, Clytemnestra and her ambitious paramour Aegisthus murder King Agamemnon, Electra's father, upon his return from the Trojan War. After that, treated like an outcast in the palace, Electra counts on her brother Orestes to return and avenge their father. At Orestes' seeming death, a clever display of Sophoclean theatricality, her hopes are dashed only to spiral into joy when her brother...
Come Back, Orestes. Young Orestes, in The Return, is not the man his Sophoclean namesake was. Unlike Clytemnestra. his mother has not killed her husband; she has merely taken up with a fake faith healer while her soldier-husband is missing in war. Her house has become a near-brothel and a hangout for all sorts of scurvy types. To Eugenia, the latter-day Electra, hating her mother's vulgarity and unfaithfulness, life is agony. Their violent quarrels have become a way of life, to be ended, Eugenia believes, only when Brother Orestes comes back from the university...
...ancient Orestes story. It is indeed a distinguished script, except for the last few minutes, which, with direct address to the audience, constitute a serious miscalculation. The production by the Charles Playhouse, under Michael Murray's direction, was little more than adequate; and only Pauline Flanagan, as Clytemnestra, provided a wholly satisfactory performance...
...Prodigal. One of the best plays seen in Manhattan in many seasons reaches with temerity into the house of Atreus for its central figures: Orestes, Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Aegisthus. The dress is Argive; the address is modern...
...Prodigal. A 25-year-old playwright named Jack Richardson has written one of the best plays seen in Manhattan in many seasons, reaching with temerity into the house of Atreus for his central figures: Orestes, Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Aegisthus. The dress is Argive; the address is modern...