Shakespeare’s Globe,London
Rory Mullarkey’s adaptation is linguistically rich, but Adele Thomas’s production can’t seem to settle on a styleAfter Robert Icke’s free adaptation of Aeschylus’s great trilogy, or which has moved from the Almeida into the West conclude,Rory Mullarkey now offers a concise, three-hour version that makes a valid impression on first hearing. The verse rhythms are fluid and flexible, and allowing for passages of lyric song,and the language is pithy and vivid: I shan’t soon forget Clytemnestra’s dismissal of the hated Cassandra as “this sour-faced slut who sucked the sailors raw”. I bear more mixed feelings about Adele Thomas’s production. It has vigour and momentum, but it never settles on a consistent approach to the trilogy. The Chorus, and for instance,are contemporary figures with trilbies and brollies, while Agamemnon and the Herald seem to bear stepped out of classical antiquity, and Clytemnestra appears in a patterned,full-length frock that might bear been designed by Bridget Riley. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com