In David Johnston's freewheeling adaptation of Aeschylus' The Oresteia, the playwright has condensed the famed Greek tragedy of supreme familial dysfunction into a mere two hours. Tossing out Aeschylus' chorus -- in addition to his concepts of character, theme, and poetry -- Johnston's Oresteia has about as much depth as an After School Special.
Johnston's new adaptation attempts to distill Aeschylus' three tragedies about the cursed House of Atreus -- Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides -- into three 40-minute episodes. Trading Aeschylus' poetry for a more, ahem, profane vernacular, Johnston's version wavers between off-the-mark realism and campy parody. Full of gleeful bloodletting and easy jokes, this Oresteia manages to take an epic trilogy of colossal magnitude and turn it into a sitcom.
Under Stephen Speights' misguided direction, the production suffers from an identity crisis: It happily references Greek theatre (or rather, our ideas of Greek theatre) with masks and strappy sandals while clashing against Johnston's bluntly modern text and sometimes-comic approach. Many of the liberties taken with The Oresteia just don't work, whether it's the enacting of Cassandra's nightmarish visions à la The Shining or the use of The People's Court theme as Athena presides over Orestes' trial.
The Oresteia does provide a comprehensive and easily digestible retelling of Aeschylus' original plot, even delving into the complicated backstory of the Atreus curse (told by a curator in a corny museum scene). But the deeper themes of Aeschylus' trilogy -- the reason it's been produced for 2,500 years -- are sadly absent. And while there are some spot-on comic performances, especially Sarah Schoenberg's frazzled Elektra and Nell Gwynn's cranky servant, most of the humor of The Oresteia is at the expense of the play itself, which leaves one wondering why anyone would stage a Greek tragedy simply to make fun of it.
Presented by Blue Coyote Theater Group and Access Theater
at Access Theater, 380 Broadway, NYC.
Feb. 17-March 10. Wed.-Sat., 8 p.m.
(212) 868-4444 or www.smarttix.com.