A bloody goth industrial mess
20% Theatre Company presents |
Electra and Orestes |
Written by Sophocles Adapted and Directed by Melissa Albertario at Evanston Arts Depot, 600 Main, Evanston (map) through May 22 | tickets: $15-$20 | more info |
Reviewed by Paige Listerud
Revisions of Classical Greek drama perpetually crop up in Chicago’s theater scene—a testament to their power to reach into the core of the human psyche and provoke renewal of perspective. Emotionally impacted by the Columbine Massacres, playwright and director Melissa Albertario sees a dramatic framework in the story of Electra, addressing how youth react to violence, upheaval and emotional anguish. Unfortunately, her newly minted adaptation, Electra and Orestes, produced by Twenty Percent Theatre Company at the Evanston Arts Depot, is so premature for the stage and so rankly amateurish, it runs the danger of provoking more laughter than empathy for the plight of its title characters.
First, there’s the dialogue, which comes across more like leaden imitation than updated reinterpretation or even homage. Incorporating fragmented lyrics from Nirvana’s “Nevermind” and Radiohead’s “Creep” into the play’s choral sections more often than not tinges the production with unintentional silliness.
Add further the conceit that Electra (Mindy Yourokos) is a goth girl warring against her sinister mother Clytemnestra (Clarissa Yearman) and her boy-toy king Aegisthus (Don Markus), not to mention constantly assailing her conformist, goody-two-shoes sister, Chrysothemis (Jackie Normand), for accommodating them and you have a feeble attempt at trying to plaster modern domestic relationships onto an ancient epic is, well, more truly epic than the modern relationships. From the get-go, Electra and Orestes has no sense of proportion; it only follows that its characters will go on and on with their conflicts and protestations, with no sign of any editorial sense of where and when to cut.
Finally, Ashley Ann Woods’ set design looks like the goth/industrial aesthetic threw up all over stage in a desperate attempt to be gritty and hardcore. Top it off with clumsy and often needless projections and what you have is a theatrical mess.
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What, then, can be salvaged from an impossibly immature production like this? Well, both Zack Meyer and Benjamin Johnson decently acquit their roles as Orestes and Pylades, respectively–even as their opening scene has them loadin’ up with guns and ammo to assail the House of Atreus. Clarissa Yearman packs some punch as good, old, wicked Clytemnestra, although she looks like Ivana Trump after the Eighties have thrown up all over her (costuming Betsey Palmer).
As for the heroine, Electra, I really wish I could say I cared about her emotional distress and compulsive tendency to engage in self-cutting—but the sluggish dialogue, the drawn out and pointless arguments with Chrysothemis and the Chorus’s ridiculous headdresses make it impossible. Nice goth gown, though. Mind if I borrow it for my next night out at Neo?
Rating: ★ |
All photo by Laura Oleska
Filed under: 20% Theatre Company, 2011 Reviews, Evanston Arts Depot, Paige Listerud | Tagged: 20% Theatre Chicago, Annie Boyer, Ashley Woods, Ben Johnson, Betsey Palmers, Claire Yearman, Diann Squiers, Don Markus, Evanston Arts Depot, Jackie Normand, Laura Deger, Lindsay Bartlett, Liz Cooper, Makena Levine, Mel Ruder, Melissa Albertario, Mindy Youroukos, Paige Listerud, Rachel Bykowski, Sophie Gatins, Sophocles, Stephanie Nielitz, Ten Zingrebe, Twenty-Percent Theatre, Zack Meyer | 2 Comments »