The Eumenides

Adaptations

Key British productions

In 1981, Sir Peter Hall directed Tony Harrison's adaptation of the trilogy in masks in London's Royal National Theatre, with music by Harrison Birtwistle and stage design by Jocelyn Herbert.[30][31][32] In 1999, Katie Mitchell followed him at the same venue (though in the Cottesloe Theatre, where Hall had directed in the Olivier Theatre) with a production which used Ted Hughes' translation.[33] In 2015, Robert Icke's production of his own adaptation was a sold out hit at the Almeida Theatre and was transferred that same year to the West End's Trafalgar Studios.[34] Two other productions happened in the UK that year, in Manchester and at Shakespeare's Globe.[35] The following year, in 2016, playwright Zinnie Harris premiered her adaptation, This Restless House, at the Citizen's Theatre to five-star critical acclaim.[36]

Chronology of adaptations

  • 1895: Composer Sergei Taneyev adapted the trilogy into his own operatic trilogy of the same name, which was premiered in 1895.
  • 1965-66: Composer Iannis Xenakis adapted vocal work for chorus and 12 instruments.
  • 1967: Composer Felix Werder adapted Agamemnon as an opera.[37]
  • 1969: The Spaghetti Western The Forgotten Pistolero, is based on the myth and set in Mexico following the Second Mexican Empire. Ferdinando Baldi, who directed the film, was also a professor of classical literature who specialized in Greek tragedy.[38][39][40][41]
  • 1974: Rush Rehm's translation of the trilogy was staged at The Pram Factory in Melbourne.
  • 2007: Yaël Farber's MoLoRa, a post-apartheid South African adaptation of the Oresteia set during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings.[42] The play was awarded three Naledi Theatre Awards.[43]
  • 2008: Theatre professor Ethan Sinnott directed an ASL adaptation of Agamemnon.[44]
  • 2008: Dominic Allen and James Wilkes, The Oresteia, for Belt Up Theatre Company.[45]
  • 2009: Canadian author Anne Carson's An Oresteia, an adaptation featuring episodes from the Oresteia from three different playwrights: Aeschylus' Agamemnon, Sophocles' Electra, and Euripides' Orestes.
  • 2014: French rapper D' de Kabal made his own adaptation of the Oresteia in his rap and hip hop play Agamemnon with the collective R.I.P.O.S.T.E. and the music and theatre artists Arnaud Churin and Emanuela Pace.[46]
  • 2016: The trilogy This Restless House by British playwright and director Zinnie Harris revisits the Oresteia, putting women in the center. Part one is Agamemnon's Return, a play of its own premiered in Scotland, followed by The Bough Breaks and Electra And Her Shadow.[47]
  • 2019: American playwright Ellen McLaughlin and director Michael Khan's The Oresteia, premiered on April 30, 2019 at the Shakespeare Theatre Company, Washington, DC. The adaptation was shown as a digital production by Theatre for a New Audience in New York City during the COVID-19 Pandemic and was directed by Andrew Watkins.[48][49]

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