The Oresteia

Get thee to the Armory indeed. This is even more worthy of 4 hours of your time than Hamlet.


Robert Icke has added a 70 minute prologue that details the events leads to The Oresteia. Its very poignant in a post Roe vs Wade world. Agamemnon does the unthinkable but it’s his faith and sense of duty that drives him to it. It’s logical and cold-blooded, but a nonbeliever might find his logic to be BS.

Angus King anchors the production like a taller, lankier Sir Patrick Stewart. Also tall and lanky Anastasia Hille matches him as Clytemnestra (Jennifer Ehle does not appear in this production). The two children playing Orestes and especially Iphigenia nearly steel the show.

After an intermission we get to Aeschylus, I think. There are some modern touches that make me think there are more additions. At this performance Imani Jade Powers played Electra and was stunning. I don’t know if she’s permanent in the role. Eboni Booth is listed as the regular. Hara Yannas just screams jibberish as Cassandra for the short time she’s on stage. This girl just had the worst luck of anyone ever. I didn’t connect with Luke Treadaway’s Orestes. It would have served both productions to have switched him with Alex Lawther. Lawther’s sniveling would have worked better here.

The ending has been reworked for a more woke age but the result is still the same showing things have not really changed.

I thought they would have let the kids go after Act I but I guess they had to stick around for the curtain call.

How accessible is the production? Wondering how much I need to brush up before seeing it.

I thought this was quite excellent. The audience started to fidget in the last 25 minutes or so but it is well worth seeing. The set and performances are spectacular.

Square Peg2 said: "Having never been to Armory, is anyone able to comment on the quality of Zone B tickets? They're all I'm able to afford at the moment and Today Tix doesn't mark on the map where they are. Is this the kind of theatre where it doesn't matter too much where you sit?"

The stage is quite big and wide.

I think it does not really matter that much even if you sit on the side far left or right, There are some moments when actors are performing on stage left, but they are basically just talking.



It's a great production, well worth seeing.

In hindsight I would have seen only this and not hamlet. This was phenomenal

Agree that this was surprisingly fantastic. We also enjoyed it more than Hamlet.

I really struggled watching this last night. I thought the first hour, and some pockets prior to the final act, was mostly thrilling. The whole Iphigenia plot reframed as a domestic drama was really well done and implied a much more explosive evening than we got. But other than a dragged body or a primal scream here and there, I thought the pacing dragged horribly. After the second intermission, any time they announced a pause, I wanted to yell “Get on with it!”

I wish I had time to see Hamlet, if only to experience this space with a more exciting play. I usually am fond of Robert Icke’s work, but this did absolutely nothing for me.