The House of Atreus had been cursed by the Gods ever since the Greek general Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter Iphiginia to obtain a fair wind for the fleet of ships bound for the seige of Troy.

In the first play, the eponymous Agamennon returns triumphant, only to be murdered by his wife Clytemnestra for putting their daughter to the knife.

In the second play of the Trilogy, the siblings Orestes and Elecktra plot to murder their mother and her new husband Aegisthus for the murder of their father Agamemnon.

In the last play, the matricide Orestes is pursued by the Furies of Guilt, Shame and Vengeance. The whole matter is only resolved when the presiding deity of Athens, the goddess Athene, refers it to the High Court of the Areopagus for Judgement.

Vendetta, in short, is supplanted by Law.

Written and performed in 485 BC, when it won first prize in Athens' annual playwriting festival, what can it possibly have to tell us in the 21st century? For the answer to that one, you only have refer to the Lockerbie thread in Off Topic or to Afghanistan or to Iraq. The pressing question addressed here is, "How do you break the cycle of violence?"

Aeschylus himself, incidentally, died in very unusual circumstances when an eagle dropped a tortoise on his bald head, mistaking it for a rock. Which just goes to show that we are all the playthings of Hazard, of Fate, of Providence, of Destiny...call it what you will.

The stagecraft involved in the performance of these plays is fascinating. More on that later, perhaps.

Excellent plays, all three of them. I could be mistaken, but I think my sister (second year classics student at cambridge) is studying Orestes this year. Those are the lectures I wish she'd take me to, instead I got to attend ancient greek grammar ones instead. Yay......

The staging of 'Agamemnon' has a few features worthy of comment:

1. We know the triumphant general is doomed when he accepts the invitation of his wife to enter his palace by progressing along an adulatory purple carpet. Since the colour purple was associated with godhead- purple cloth was very expensive and highly prized in ancient Greece- Agamemnon thereby commits the sin of HUBRIS (loosely, overweening Pride) for which we know the gods will strike him down.

2. After his murder, the dead body of Agamemnon is displayed to the audience on an Ekkyklema or wheeled platform pushed through the doors of the palace. The same wheeled platform will be used in the second play of the Trilogy 'The Libation-Bearers' to display the corpses of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. The Ekkyklema served much the same function as the device of the "Reveal" in Shakespeare's Globe.

3. You'll note that the murder of Agamemnon has taken place off-stage, which was the usual practice in the ancient Greek theatre. This wasn't just in order to conform with Greek notions of civic and religious seemliness, it's also dramatically highly effective. When Agamemnon enters his palace, the masked chorus sing and dance a hymn of suspense, trepidation and fear, climaxing in the presentation of his cadaver on the Ekkyklema. Shakespeare, too, was aware of the the dramatic possibilities of the off-stage death, as the suspenseful scene of the murder of Duncan in MACBETH and the pathetic death of Cordelia in KING LEAR demonstrate.

The theatrical legend goes that the first stage appearance of the chorus of Furies in the third play of the Trilogy 'The Eumenides' was so terrifying that women in the audience actually gave birth.

It's difficult to see how this could be true since women and slaves were debarrred from attending theatrical performaces.

Athenian Democracy was based on a very limited franchise, confined strictly to male citizens of a certain age.

What puzzles me about the Furies is that the term "Eumenides" translates as "The Kindly Ones". Can anyone explain this apparent contradiction in terminology? Is it supposed to be ironic?

No, no. If my memory serves me well Athena renames them Eumenides (their previous name was Erinyes) at the end of their trial and announces they will be honoured by Athens. They are beings that avenge the killing of parents. Orestes kills Clytemnestra and they chase him. Athena then steps in and brings about a jury to trial Orestes. Apollo (I think) defends him, and says that men are more important than women (boo hiss) as Athena was born after Zeus ate her mum or somehting. Anway, the jury is hung, and then Orestes is aquitted and he can go free. Hence the new name given.

Ah, right. So the Furies only become the Kindly Ones after the tradition of Vendetta is supplanted by the rule of Law. Well, that makes sense.

Thanks, LaRue.

There's a version of the Oresteia trilogy adapted to be staged as a single play, which was prepared by John Lewin at the behest of Sir Tyrone Guthrie for the Guthrie Theater in Minnesota.

I don't know if this version has caught on, but I know of at least one production outside of Minnesota--in British Columbia.

This work plays a part in the graffic novel Logicomix I talked about in another thread and I must say that I'm quite intruiged by it.

What version should I get?

Saw the first play in the trilogy. Agamemnon, on Friday. It was a student production and I knew the guys who played AgaAgaAga, Aegisthus and the dude who directed it. I've only ever read it so it was cool to see on stage.

The Oresteia is the only surviving trilogy, if I'm not mistaken. Is that right?

Eddie, La Rue, what translations are you looking at? We used Richard Lattimore's.

Thanks for the response, LaRue.

Any music played as the chorus gyrated?

It's not widely appreciated that, properly made, a mask doesn't have to immobilise an actor's face with one set expression.

Each mask should have, say, three emotional planes or aspects corresponding to the essential personality traits of the character it portrays. The wearer inclines his head to present in turn the aspect of its character appropriate to each scene.

Wearing a mask is an odd experience. If you're open to it, your natural facial features will actually mould themselves to its contours and your body finds itself adopting the appropriate physical movements all by itself. A kind of possession, if you like.

Not difficult, then, to understand the role masks played in primitive rituals.

There were drum beats, but that's about it. An odd cymbal crash too....

I agree, you can still act very well with masks. We were seated on the front row, and all the characters had copious amounts of eyeliner on, their eyes were electric!

I deleted the photo too^^ I remembered that one of the guys gets touchy about this sort of thing.