The Oresteia is a classic Greek Tragedy filled with blood and more murders than you can shake a stick at. When I arrived at the Lowry for this show I thought I was going to see a standard adaptation of the famous text by Aeschylus. How wrong was I? Instead we were treated to around a 70 minute summary of text humorously played by 3 actors; Nuala Maguire, Grace Goulding and Tanya Muchanyuka.
Judging by the amount of teenagers in the audience I am assuming The Oresteia is on the school syllabus. However, Splendid Productions were completely aware of this and made their adaptation perfectly suited to this audience. The three ladies had their attention from beginning to end, and believe me that’s not easy with a group of teenagers.
This adaptation doesn’t follow the sequence of the original text. We are introduced to the Furies at the very beginning here, and if my memory serves me correct the Furies don’t appear until the final act of the original play. I'm still in two minds about this. It's great to re-imagine the play, but some things are written in a certain order for a reason.
Although the production does take place in a rather large theatre there is a very fringe feel to the piece. The girls do their own tech and there is minimal props and costumes. After doing a bit of research after the play I learned this piece is indeed a Theatre in Education format. However, I do think Splendid Productions could have upped their game a little for a show at the Quays Theatre in the Lowry, after all people did pay for tickets to see this.
I think this production was great as an accessible version for children. However I can't help but feel in doing so they've cut out most of the beautiful language and poetry from the original version.
The acting from the three ladies is top-notch, each of them able to portray many different characters throughout and keep what is an ancient text amusing. However, what struck me as most impressive was the girls improvisation skills. They were able to interact with the audience too.
Obviously one the main parts of the original Oresteia is the role of the Chorus. The girls transformed themselves into cockney men, old women, common Essex style ladies and of course the Furies. However I'm not sure if this came across as well as it could have - a chorus is supposed to be a group, not 3 people.
This production is definitely fantastic at what it does - making an old play accessible to a younger audience. However, if you were looking for a classic performance of the original text you won’t find it in this show.
Reviewer - Brian Madden
on - 28/11/18
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