In GARY McCann's soaring silver setting of interlaced crescents making platforms and arches, under Paul O'Neill's excellent lighting (both illuminating and atmospheric), Colin Teevan's new re-working of Euripides's Iphegenia in Aulis opened in Belfast on Tuesday night to an impressive clatter of ominous percussion by Urban Strawberry Lunch.
Donncha Crowley's Old Man is discovered trying to wake himself to try to tell us the story of how Sean Hannaway's Agamemnon is to decide that the gods require him to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia in order to raise the wind which may bring back the Greek Danaan ships back from Troy with Helen rescued.
David Grant's direction provides a subdued yet surefooted production of a 2,500-year-old Greek tragedy that now is timeless and carefully placeless. Iphigenia (here Iphgeneia) clearly loves her father and is loved by him. But, he argues, the affairs of State require the sacrifice. Paula McFettridge's Clytemnestra (here Klytaimnestra) loves and is loved by Iphigenia, but her feelings for her indecisive pragmatic husband turn from negative to murderous as the one hour and 20 minutes of the action unfolds, counter-pointed by a young chorus of distinctly 20th century female groupies who squeal with pleasure at the sight of Kevin James Kelly's handsome Achilles (Achilleus) who might have married Iphigenia) and who clearly disapprove of Agamemnon's plans, which are egged on by his brother Menelaus (Richard Dormer).
Despite the atmospheric music by Debra Salem and the punctuating percussion throughout, it may be that, in this secular age, there should be a stronger sense of foreboding throughout, a more palpable sense of the inevitability of what the gods have ordained. Perhaps some of this is dramatically dispelled by the fanlike chorus, and sometimes Agamemnon's propensity for the cock-up gives the impression that the tragedy might have been more accidental than inevitable. But there are many contemporary resonances in this tale of a young girl murdered by her father in pursuit of tribal warfare and saving face. Maybe that's why Mr Teevan's muscular text, originally commissioned by the Abbey Theatre, received its first performance in Belfast. It is well worth seeing.
Runs until March 20th Booking by telephone at (Belfast) 381081.
