Staging “The Oresteia,” Aeschylus’s epic Greek tragedy, is a daunting task for any theater company, especially if you add a dash of Sophocles and Euripides when portraying one of history’s most dysfunctional families.
The Thalia Theater in Hamburg, Germany, will premiere its nearly four-hour production “Die Orestie” at the Salzburg Festival for eight performances Aug. 3-15 (and in Hamburg starting Oct. 30). It is adapted and directed by Nicolas Stemann, who has staged two plays at the festival: a nine-hour adaptation of Goethe’s “Faust” in 2011 and “Die Rauber” (“The Robbers”) by Friedrich Schiller in 2008.
This production, which takes its name from the Aeschylus three-part epic and is to be performed in German with English supertitles, combines three playwrights’ versions of the tragedies that befall the fabled house of Atreus. In the Aeschylus play, first staged in 458 B.C., Agamemnon, the king of Mycenae, returns from the Trojan War but is killed by his wife, Clytemnestra, to avenge the sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia in an effort to win the war. Their son, Orestes, urged by the god Apollo, kills Clytemnestra, only to be pursued by the Furies, the goddesses of vengeance. Only when the goddess Athena intervenes is he granted justice and allowed to live.
The Sophocles play “Electra” (its exact date is unknown, but most scholars put it around 420 to 414 or 416 B.C.) explores his sister’s revenge against their mother. And the Euripides play “Orestes,” first staged in 408 B.C., gives a more cynical take on his fate: Only after a bloody rampage and an intervention by Apollo are the condemned siblings allowed to live.
In a video interview, Stemann discussed the challenge — and the excitement — of combining these nearly 2,500-year-old plays. The following conversation has been edited and condensed.
What is different about this version of “The Orestia”?
I take the first of the three plays in the “Orestia” cycle by Aeschylus, then add “Electra” by Sophocles, then another part of the Aeschylus trilogy, and then “Orestes” by Euripides. I’m doing this because it covers 50 years in which we have the birth of Athenian democracy but also the decline of it. You can feel it in the way that each playwright approaches the story. It’s a story of hatred, murder and revenge. The question that occurs is how we can step out of this vicious circle.
How was it different for Sophocles and Euripides decades after Aeschylus regarding that vicious circle?
With Aeschylus, it’s a happy ending. There’s peace. Orestes is pardoned. But Euripides takes the same plot and writes it in a completely contrary way. Orestes is not pardoned. He and Electra are condemned to death by stoning. They run amok, storm the palace and burn the whole city down. It reminds me a lot of the storming of the U.S. Capitol. We have the dream of Aeschylus and the nightmare of Euripides. It’s like pieces of a puzzle that don’t fit together, and that interests me.
What inspired you to write this combined version of “The Orestia?”
We are living in time of wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, yet we in Middle Europe still think that we live in a peaceful society. These questions about war and democracy coexisting are still with us. Aeschylus wrote about the war against the Persians because he fought in that war. In the first part of his trilogy, they have won the war, but nobody is happy. This victory party never starts. In fact, war comes home. Murder comes home.
How are you casting this “Orestia”?
I’m doing all three plays with only five actors. They’re the chorus and all of the characters. The ancient playwrights did it with even fewer actors. In the second part, I go to just one character with long monologues.
Do you think it’s mostly unknown how short-lived democracy was in its initial form in ancient Greece? Is that a big history lesson in “The Orestia”?
Democracy lasted longer, but in a weakened way. And at that time, it was unique, so it was radical. They benefited from winning the war against the Persians. It reminds me a bit of the United States after World War II. And now we have decline. You feel this in these Greek tragedies. After they commit these murders, they want to have peace. But it doesn’t work like that. Peace always comes with a power imbalance, so it’s always based on some sort of injustice. That’s why, tragically, it’s never stable for a long time.
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