Oresteia Live Play Analysis
Oresteia Live It is said, “Aeschylus’ theatrical genius can be fully appreciated only through an awareness of the context in which these plays were performed” and the Royal National Theatre’s production of the Oresteia demonstrates this principle (Aeschylus xi). Elements such as the music, costumes, scenery, and actors in the live production highlights different relationships within the play, which allows for an audience to have a different interpretation of the plays than someone who might read the plays. With this said, it is the mask of the costume that I will focus on in this review because the mask considerably affects how characters’ actions are conveyed, thus leading to differences between the interpretation of the text and the live
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I found myself sometimes laughing when something serious would be happening, and this was because of the expression that was permanently on the mask. At times the single look couldn’t portray human life and emotion correctly. With this said, it is interesting to think about how Aeschylus deliberately wrote humorous moments in the dialogue to bring comedy into tragedy, and maybe my laughter was provoked by that element (Aeschylus xiv). But I highly doubt this because I was laughing at how they looked, not what they said. So to fix this, I might research how different expressions on masks could look more neutral so that the body language could set the mood instead of the mask. Also, I wished the live production had used three main actors like the original production would have used, making it a more successful version of the Oresteia (we know the three actor rule was not upheld because Clytemnestra and Cassandra were on stage together) (xii-xiii). With the masks and costumes covering the entire body it would have been possible to stick to three actors, and the vague entrances in the text could have provided for the support to make this
I found myself sometimes laughing when something serious would be happening, and this was because of the expression that was permanently on the mask. At times the single look couldn’t portray human life and emotion correctly. With this said, it is interesting to think about how Aeschylus deliberately wrote humorous moments in the dialogue to bring comedy into tragedy, and maybe my laughter was provoked by that element (Aeschylus xiv). But I highly doubt this because I was laughing at how they looked, not what they said. So to fix this, I might research how different expressions on masks could look more neutral so that the body language could set the mood instead of the mask. Also, I wished the live production had used three main actors like the original production would have used, making it a more successful version of the Oresteia (we know the three actor rule was not upheld because Clytemnestra and Cassandra were on stage together) (xii-xiii). With the masks and costumes covering the entire body it would have been possible to stick to three actors, and the vague entrances in the text could have provided for the support to make this