Sophocles' Electra with English supertitles

A performance of Sophocles' play Electra, the famous story of King Agamemnon's daughter, now offers a treat for foreign theater lovers that cannot follow Greek, it comes with supertitles in English and other languages, at the Syghrono Theatro.

In Electra by Sophocles everything takes place within a day. It starts at dawn with the murder of Orestes and is completed that very evening with the murder of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. Their life ends when the tragedy ends. There is no future. As in a performance. The end of the play signifies the end of its “life”. This “play”, the “matching” of the characters’ situation with the situation of those who enact them becomes the focal point of action on stage.

Sophocles’ text leads towards this direction. In the first scene with Orestes and the Tutor, and the voiceless Pylades, the Tutor takes up a role of playwright-director. Ηe gives the actor-Orestes his scenic identity οn stage and defines the space, (“Son of him who led our hosts at Troy of old, son of Agamemnon! – now thou mayest behold thine eyes all that thy soul hath desired so long. There is the ancient Argos of thy yearning”) and, at the same time, he signals to everyone involved that the time has come for the past, infused in rehearsals, to become the future; that the time has come for the drama action to take place. Orestes responds by taking on the role of playwright-director and reveals what we’ll see in the rest of the play.

In this tragedy speech becomes action, and it is the very reason why the realization of the drama (Clytemnestra’s murder) is delayed. It’ll take a lie, a “directed death” of Orestes for the heroes to pass into action, when words will make no sense. Electra: “Well! I must do this deed with mine own hand, and alone; for assuredly I will not leave it void”. For this “theatre within the theatre” to culminate with the scene of the recognition, the focus of which is an empty urn, a lifeless and empty object capable of making Orestes give in, deviate from his plan and reveal himself to Electra…

Sophocles builds a world where the characters have to “play” a role. Electra can only be Electra, Orestes can only be Orestes, Clytemnestra can only be Clytemnestra. And though everyone knows the story, the ending with the killing of the two lovers, this inevitable fact, becomes the most interesting part. The relations of the characters, their lives behind the guises, the situation revealed through the conflicts between them as well as within.

It’s as if every word they utter is another blow in a boxing fight.

The performance is in modern Greek (translation by George Cheimonas). In parallel there  will be surtitles in the following five  languages:

Thursday:        English – French

Friday:             English – Russian

Saturday:         English – German

Sunday:           English – Spanish