Lyn Gardner's Top Reasons to see The Oresteia at the Bridge Theatre
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### **Reasons to see The Oresteia at the Bridge Theatre**
Yes, I know you are disappointed that **Chris Pine** won’t be on the London stage until 2027 in [*Ivanov*](https://www.londontheatredirect.com/play/ivanov-tickets) at the [Bridge Theatre](https://www.londontheatredirect.com/venue/bridge-theatre-london), but the postponement offers the opportunity for rising levels of anticipation (like looking forward to a holiday booked months in advance) and could just make way for the show of the year. To fill the slot, writer/director Simon Stone is instead turning his attention to that big daddy of revenge tragedies, **Aeschylus**’ [*The Oresteia*](http://Lyn Gardner's Top Reasons to see The Oresteia at the Bridge Theatre), first performed in 458 BC. Your added bonus is that it stars **David Morrissey, Mary-Louise Parker, Tom Glynn-Carney** and **Rosie Sheehy.**
### **Won’t it be a bit old and crumbly?**
Well, yes, it is extremely old and the only complete trilogy of plays to survive from Ancient Greece, but it’s also an award-winner. It won first prize at the city of Athens festival of Dionysia. So, it was the Olivier Award winner of its day. Apparently, there was a team of judges, but they were strongly influenced by how hard the audience clapped; clearly, an early version of the clapometer was in operation for the judging process.
### **So, what’s it about?**
Revenge and justice. In the first play, Agamemnon returns triumphant from the Trojan Wars but is murdered by his wife Clytemnestra, who, not surprisingly, hasn’t got over the fact he sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia to appease the gods and get a fair wind to set sail to Troy. In the second play, the husband and wife’s son, Orestes, murders his mum to avenge his dad’s murder. In the third play Orestes is pursued by the Furies demanding that Clytemnestra is avenged. So it’s three plays condensed into one, asking, 'Can the cycle of revenge and generational trauma ever be broken?'
### **Ok, I like a bit of revenge, but it still feels as if it will be all Greek to me.**
It might well do so if it were not for the fact that it is being rewritten and directed by **Simon Stone**, who has a real knack for bringing old and older texts right up to date. He had a huge hit with a knock-out version of **Lorca**’s *Yerma* set in contemporary London with **Billie Piper** in the lead, and he did a brilliant *Medea* set in contemporary America. So, this version is about a family in the here and now, not one living thousands of years ago. **Stone** has previously said of his work, “What if it’s about you? " What if it’s a very old story about you?” This version of *The Oresteia* will be, and it will raise questions: how does society deal with a father who has killed his daughter and a son who slays his mum? Those questions are as pertinent to us today as they were in Ancient Greece.
### **Why doesn’t he just do the play as Aeschylus wrote it?**
Here is **Stone** again in an interview in the Financial Times. “A text is just a blueprint for performance. For me the question is: how do you make the audience engage with the ideas that made the playwright write the play in the first place? There are theatres in Europe where I’ve staged shows, and it is like the 100th *Peer Gynt* that theatre has seen. Theatre is a space that can literalise our relationship to history because it takes place only now, and yet the source material is from so long ago. So those two time periods are coexisting. That’s why I write new plays based on old plays.”
### **So, it’s both old and new at the same time?**
**Aeschylus** was writing a play based on a story which his audience would have known from Homer, just as the audiences for many of **Shakespeare’**s plays would have already been familiar with the story he was telling. Both **Aeschylus, Shakespeare** and **Simon Stone** know that it is not just the narrative you tell but how you tell it that matters. That may well be particularly interesting here in the way he deals with the women in the play. Aeschylus is not sympathetic to Clytemnestra; I suspect that **Stone** may have more sympathy. After all, he has already successfully rescued Medea from villainy.
### **But hasn’t London already seen a version of Oresteia?**
You’re right; writer/director **Robert Icke**’s breakthrough hit, for which he won an Olivier aged 29, was his 2015 version of *Oresteia* seen at the Almeida, in the West End and also on Broadway. More than a decade ago is a long time, so although **Icke**’s production still burns brightly in the mind Stone has an opportunity to make his own mark upon the play. **Stone**’s will be different. Just as over the years others have taken the *Oresteia* as a blueprint: **Zinnie Harris**’ *This Restless House* and **TS Eliot**’s *The Family Reunion* are both based on **Aeschylus**’ play.
### **OK, so it’s a very influential play and pops up everywhere?**
Well, not quite everywhere, but certainly in some unexpected places. The final book in the *Harry Potter* series, *Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows*, has an epigraph at the beginning which comes from the *Oresteia*, drawing a parallel between the blood feuds of wizards and the blood-soaked ancient Greek family.
### **Are there any extra bonuses?**
The Bridge Theatre is air-conditioned. So however hot things get on stage, you will be cool.
[*The Oresteia*](https://www.londontheatredirect.com/play/oresteia-tickets) runs from 2 July - 19 September 2026. Book your tickets today.