Orestes (NHB Classic Plays)

By Helen Edmundson

An explosive retelling of the most savage and powerful of ancient myths - the story of avenging siblings, Electra and Orestes - premiered by Shared Experience Theatre Company.
As children, Orestes and his sister, Electra, were sent far away, banished by their own mother. Years later, the city must vote to determine their future, as they stand trial for her murder. Some say the killing should be met with banishment and that the cycle of revenge must be stopped. Others want blood...
Exploring the tragedy of human relationships set against the backdrop of war, Orestes is based on Euripides' Electra.
'crackles with dangerous energy' - Irish Independent
'at once timeless and as topical as tomorrow's headlines... slams straight into the viewer's head, heart and gut' - Telegraph
'Euripides was the most profound and disturbing psychologist of the three great Greeks; and Edmundson and (director) Meckler blend his cruel insights and classical grandeur with a masterful theatrical intelligence' - Sunday Times

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Release date: Dec 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781780015194

Helen Edmundson

Helen Edmundson’s first play, Flying, was presented at the National Theatre Studio in 1990. In 1992, she adapted Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina for Shared Experience, for whom she also adapted The Mill on the Floss in 1994. Both won awards – the TMA and the Time Out Awards respectively – and both productions were twice revived and extensively toured. Shared Experience also staged her original adaptation of War and Peace at the National Theatre in 1996, and toured her adaptations of Mary Webb’s Gone to Earth in 2004, Euripides’ Orestes in 2006, the new two-part version of War and Peace in 2008, and the original play Mary Shelley in 2012. Her original play The Clearing was first staged at the Bush Theatre in 1993, winning the John Whiting and Time Out Awards, Mother Teresa is Dead was premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in 2002 and The Heresy of Love was premiered by the Royal Shakespeare Company in the Swan Theatre in 2012. Her adaptation of Jamila Gavin’s Coram Boy premiered at the National Theatre to critical acclaim in 2005, receiving a Time Out Award. It was subsequently revived in 2006, and produced on Broadway in 2007. She adapted Calderón’s Life is a Dream for the Donmar Warehouse in 2009, and Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons for the Bristol Old Vic in 2010, which subsequently transferred to the West End before embarking on a national tour in 2012. Her adaptation of Émile Zola's Thérèse Raquin was premiered by the Theatre Royal, Bath, in 2014, and was subsequently produced on Broadway by Roundabout Theatre Company in 2015. Her original play, Queen Anne, was commissioned and premiered by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2015, and her adaptation of Andrea Levy's Small Island was staged by the National Theatre in 2019. She was awarded the 2015 Windham Campbell Prize for Drama.

Book preview

Helen Edmundson

ORESTES

BLOOD AND LIGHT

Based on

Euripides

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

Original Production

Foreword

Characters

Orestes

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

This version of Orestes was first performed by Shared Experience Theatre Company at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, on 14 September 2006; and subsequently at Dublin Theatre Festival; Warwick Arts Centre; The Lowry, Salford; Liverpool Playhouse; Oxford Playhouse; and Tricycle Theatre, London. The cast was as follows:

Foreword

When Nancy Meckler first gave me Euripides’ version of Orestes to read, I was puzzled by it. It is structurally flawed and tonally inconsistent. Although classed as a tragedy, its ending, in which a god descends and puts everything to rights, is a happy, if hollow, one. For these reasons it is rarely performed and often over-looked in discussions of his work, but the ideas contained within it are fascinating. The more we talked, the more I understood why Nancy was drawn to it. I understood the sad and frightening number of ways in which it is relevant to the current state of the world. When I began writing I was thinking as much about George Bush disregarding the views of the UN, and Tony Blair praying to God for guidance before invading Iraq, as I was about suicide bombers and religious extremists. I was thinking as much about honour killings amongst religious communities as about the loss of faith in the integrity of government and the impartiality of law.

As I wrote, I found the story allowed me to go even further. The way the characters use religion to justify their actions opened up into questions about the very nature of faith and the complex relationship between Man and his Gods, whilst Electra’s damaged, desperate heart speaks volumes about the personal, deep-rooted pain that underlies so many acts of violence, both on small and large scales.

I confess I have played fast and loose with the conventions of Greek theatre and with Euripides’ version of the story. I have abandoned the Chorus (who is not active or influential in the Euripides) in favour of the more subtle witness of the Slave. I have cut the character of Pylades to allow Electra her full role in the story and to allow myself to explore the extremities of her relationship with her brother. I have given Helen an intelligent, probing mind and allowed her and Klytemnestra some defence. I have chosen not to emulate the verse structure and metres of Euripides’ text, but to try to create a rhythmic, heightened language of my own.

In short, I have followed my instincts. I have kept what is useful to me and lost what is not in the hope of creating a drama which can speak freely, freshly and vitally to audiences today.

Helen Edmundson

Characters

ELECTRA

ORESTES

HELEN

SLAVE

MENELAOS

TYNDAREOS

SOLDIERS

ATTENDANTS

A forward slash (/) in the dialogue indicates that the next character begins speaking at that point. If the forward slash appears at the end of a character’s line of dialogue, it indicates that the character continues their next line of dialogue without a break.

In Klytemnestra’s bedroom in Agamemnon’s palace. It is an ostentatious room, full of clothes and pairs of shoes, full of the gold-plated trappings of wealth.

ELECTRA is sitting at the dressing table. She is wearing one of her mother’s dresses over the top of her own clothes.

ORESTES is on the bed, asleep.

ELECTRA. Sometimes she would let me stay while she undressed. Sometimes she would send the servants away and she would sit here while I brushed her hair. My mother. She would let