This week’s preview is like none other you’ve seen. This week, I had the special opportunity to see the opening performance before sitting down to write the preview. Or review. Whatever. Let’s just call this a view.
This week: Sophocles’ Electra, translated by Anne Carson and directed by Mike James ’07.
James, if you remember, has experience directing in the ’92. Last year, he gave Wesleyan a colorful production of The Faculty Room. Electra was an opportunity for James to display his vibrant, fluid style with a less contemporary piece. Anne Carson’s translation is stunning in its preservation of original rhythms and verbal complexity of Sophocles’ ancient text. In fact, Carson left Electra’s guttural moaning and wailing untranslated—deep, primal expressions that in other versions appear as flowery complaints like “Woe is me!” etc.
“Updating” ancient texts like these always presents a delicate dilemma: in efforts to make the narrative palatable to modern audiences, many directors circumscribe the important themes intended by the author. The drive behind such artistic decisions cannot be an easier delivery of the story—rather, it must be an illustration of parallel themes in today’s world. James understood this distinction, highlighting man’s historical desire to conquer nature and maintain patriarchal hierarchies by setting the play the barren, picturesque Alaskan mountains. The visually striking stage was set and lit by, respectively, Nick Benacerraf ’08 and Greg Malen ’09, truly skilled artists. The cast, decked in Lydia Bell ’07’s tattered, colorful and voluminous costumes, spoke to our destructive tendencies to over-consume. In fact, it reminded me, for one split second, of John Waters’ filthy/gorgeous cult classic Pink Flamingoes.
James was lucky enough (or clever enough) to rope in a rock-solid cast of actors. Annie Paladino ’09 was able to tap into some reservoir of raw emotion and unleash a beastly, vengeful Electra. Jesse Bordwin ’10 rose far beyond his years for his dually tender and intimidating performance of her brother Orestes. Keren Daskin ’10, Kate Heller ’09 and Jordanna Wolf ’10, as the Chorus, developed a finely tuned ensemble. Overall, the cast held a firm grasp over the text and offered an impressively professional performance.
Leave a Reply