ElectraTeaching Resources

CONTENTS

The Ancient Greeks

Sophocles

Timeline of Greek Theatre and Sophocles

Electra at The Old Vic

Electra Synopsis

Electra Character Breakdown

Electra’s Family Tree

Electra Themes

Greek Stages

Creating a Chorus: Practical Exercises

In conversation with... Ian Rickson, Director Mark Thompson, Designer Julia Dearden, Golda Rosheuvel and Thalissa Teixeira, chorus

Bibliography

Old Vic New Voices EducationThe Old VicThe CutLondon SE1 8NB

E education@oldvictheatre.comW oldvicnewvoices.com

@oldvicnewvoices

© The Old Vic, 2014. All information is correct at the time of going to press, but may be subject to change

ElectraBy Sophocles In a version by Frank McGuinnessDirected by Ian Rickson

Teaching Resources Compiled by Roxanne Peak-PayneDesign Peter CollinsCover image Katerina JebbRehearsal photography Johan Persson

Old Vic New VoicesDirector Alexander Ferris Education & Community Manager Hannah FoskerIntern Mirain JonesTalent Officer Laura Humphrey

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In Ancient Greece theatre was an essential and significant part of everyday life, influencing politics, religion and society. The traditions of Greek theatre started in the form of festivals organised to honour the gods. The god of wine and fertility, Dionysus, was celebrated with a festival where men would perform songs and dances to welcome him. These became more and more formalised, and finally developed into plays with a chorus who danced and sang.

The festivals known as City Dionysia or Great Dionysia were huge spectacles, and over time amphitheatres were built on a massive scale to accommodate thousands of people. The performances were shown as part of an annual competition between the three greatest playwrights. Three days were dedicated to the performance of tragedies, and later, comedies were also allowed to compete, although they were of a lesser importance. The festivals were the most important events in the calendar and were as much a social and religious gathering as a theatre celebration.

The two main genres of theatre in Ancient Greece were tragedy and comedy. Tragedy is the oldest of the genres, and was the most revered form. The stage action of tragedies tends to focus on the relationship between the hero’s intention, action and consequence, typically setting him against his unavoidable destiny, his family, his society and himself. Comedies were used to criticise immorality and corruption, and

to mock people and situations, usually ending in a final scene of choral dancing and revelry.

On stage there would be a chorus of 12–15 men and between one and three actors, depending on which period the play was written in. Actors would usually play several characters, and the chorus would represent the general population of the play’s location. Actors would wear costumes and masks to help depict different characters. Although no masks have survived as they were made of linen or cork, records suggest that tragic masks carried mournful or pained expressions, while comic masks were smiling or leering.

All the performers and writers were men, as women were not able to become ‘citizens’. In Ancient Greece, being a citizen gave you political and social rights such as voting and owning land, but women, slaves and foreigners were not given citizenship. Given the marginal status of women in the theatre and in wider society, it is interesting to consider how many plays depend on the action of female characters.

Aristotle wrote extensively about plays and their structure, and felt there were three basic ‘unities’ from which classic drama was written. The Unity of Action – a play should have one main narrative, with no or few subplots. The Unity of Place – the play should only be in one location, and the stage should only represent this place. The Unity of Time – the action of the play

should take place over no more than one day. For Aristotle, the Unity of Action was the most important because it focuses the audience on the key issue of the play without diverting to distracting subplots. The unities remained influential in dramatic criticism for many years until the middle of the 19th Century, when their importance lessened.

The majority of plays that have survived are copies, which were made for teachers and scholars to study several centuries after the originals were written. However, what remains today is a fraction of the work that was created for Greek theatres. For example, only 19 out of 90 plays by Euripides, and only seven of Sophocles’ 123 plays have survived. Conflicts and disasters have meant that many plays were destroyed en masse, meaning the names of writers such as Thespis, Agathon and Philokles are all that survive of their work.

Theatre was a powerful tool in Ancient Greece, used to promote cultural identity amongst its citizens and colonies, and explore moral issues and philosophical ideas. The influence of Greek theatre can still be felt today and has clearly had a profound effect on many aspects of Western culture. In terms of the drama specifically, it could easily be argued that Western theatre as we know it originated in Athens 2,500 years ago.

THE ANCIENT GREEKS

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SOPHOCLES (c 496–406 BCE)

Sophocles is credited with several major and minor dramatic innovations, and through these he gave theatre in Ancient Greece a shape and structure that is recognisable to theatre makers today. He primarily wrote tragedies and won his first victory, against Aeschylus, in 468 BCE. He was victorious 24 times in his career and never finished lower than second in the City Dionysia dramatic competition. Of the 120 plays attributed to Sophocles only seven survive – Ajax, Trachiniae, Antigone, Oedipus the King, Electra, Philoctetes and Oedipus at Colonus. Fragments of his satyr play The Trackers also survive.

Sophocles was responsible for introducing a third actor into dramatic performance, an innovation rapidly copied by other playwrights, including Aeschylus and Euripides. Aeschylus’ addition of a second actor allowed for dialogue and for actors to ‘double’ and play multiple roles, although the interactions of characters were still very restricted. The addition of a third actor onstage enabled writers to considerably increase the total number of characters in the play and to depict a larger variety of dramatic situations.

This advancement was more significant than merely improving the construction of scenes or the scope of characters. The essence of any three-actor scene is that the outcome of events will depend on whether A will side with B or C, or

whether the combined efforts of B and C will change A’s mind. Sophocles allowed a choice to be made within a scene, and this choice was decided by the nature of the person making it as well as the situation. Two-actor scenes were able to depict the will of the gods, with one character going head to head with a predestined fate; much more a narrative than a drama. Sophocles’ additional actor meant that his characters could be seen as three dimensional, conflicted beings, who spoke and acted as their personalities dictated, choosing their own paths to success, failure or extinction.

Sophocles is also credited with enlarging the size of the chorus from 12 to 15 men, and creating a form of scenery or other visual aid to establish location or atmosphere. This was painted on the ‘skene’, in which the actors changed costumes.

Sophocles played an important part in the civic life of Athens as well as in the theatre. He was treasurer for the Athenian imperial league, and served as one of ten generals who led a campaign against Samos, an island threatening to break away from the Athenian alliance. In 411 BCE he was appointed to a committee called to examine Athens’ disastrous military campaign in Sicily.

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TIMELINE OF GREEK THEATRE & SOPHOCLES

7th Century BCE

c 625 Arion, a poet, is credited with inventing dithyrambic choruses. A dithyramb is a song or hymn performed by a chorus of up to 50 men or boys.

6th Century BCE

600–570 Cleisthenes, tyrant ruler of Sicyon, shifts the focus of dithyrambic performances from heroes to the god Dionysus. 540–52 Pisistratus, tyrant ruler of Athens, establishes the City Dionysia, the annual springtime dramatic festival.

536–533 Thespis puts on tragedy at the City Dionysia in Athens. Thespis is known as the first actor of tragedy and, as such, actors are often called ‘thespians’.

525 Aeschylus is born.

511–508 Phrynichus’ first victory in tragedy. Phrynichus was a pupil of Thespis, and was the first to introduce an actor separate from the chorus, allowing for theatrical dialogue. Phrynichus is also credited with introducing female characters, who were played by men in masks.

c 500 Pratinus introduces the ‘satyr’ play, a form of tragicomedy that was based on Greek mythology, and was bawdy and brazen.

5th Century BCE

499–496 Aeschylus’ first dramatic competition. c 496 Sophocles is born.

485 Euripides is born.

484 Aeschylus’ first dramatic victory. Aeschylus added a second actor to his plays, enabling him to show intrigue and conflict. He also reduced the chorus in size, lessening its importance in favour of dramatic dialogue.

470 Thought to be Sophocles’ first competition.

468 Sophocles defeats Aeschylus in the City Dionysia competition, aged approximately 28 years.

According to Plutarch, the victory comes in unusual circumstances, as it is decided by military leaders rather than the judges.

456 Aeschylus dies.

c 450 Aristophanes born, the first great writer of satirical comedy. 447 Building of the Parthenon begins in Athens, a temple for the goddess Athena.

c 445 Sophocles’ Ajax.

441 Sophocles’ Antigone.

431–404 Peloponnesian War (Athens and allies vs Sparta and allies).

c 429 Sophocles’ Oedipus the King.

406 Sophocles dies; Euripides dies.

404 Athens loses Peloponnesian War to Sparta.

401 Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus produced posthumously by his grandson (also called Sophocles).

4th Century BCE

399 Trial and death of Socrates, condemned for corrupting youth.

c 380s Plato’s Republic includes critique of Greek tragedy and comedy.

c 330s Aristotle’s Poetics includes defence of Greek tragedy and comedy. 

c 340–300 BCE The huge amphitheatre at Epidaurus is built.

The dates of many events in Greek theatre have been lost, for example when Electra was written and performed, meaning what we are left with is a patchwork of information.

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ELECTRA AT THE OLD VIC

Kristin Scott ThomasElectra

Tyrone Huggins Aegisthus

Jack Lowden Orestes

Diana QuickClytemnestra

Liz WhiteChrysothemis

Peter WightServant

Julia DeardenChorus

Golda RosheuvelChorus

Thalissa TeixeiraChorus

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Jenny BoltU/S Clytemnestra & Chorus

Katy BrittainU/S Electra

Matthew DarcyU/S Orestes

Cait DavisU/S Chrysothemis & Chorus

Colin HaighU/S Aegisthus& Servant

Asha ReidU/S Chorus

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SYNOPSIS

Before starting with the plot of the play, it is useful to know the events that have happened before the action begins. Electra is part of a much larger story taken from Greek mythology, and characters that appear in the play can be found in many other plays and stories by other writers.

Agamemnon, the King of Mycenae, and his brother Menelaus go to the Trojan War to retrieve Menelaus’ wife Helen. Agamemnon sacrifices his eldest daughter, Iphigenia, to appease a goddess who will not allow his army to sail. He returns from the war with his concubine Cassandra, but they are both murdered on their arrival by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, in revenge for sacrificing Iphigenia. Electra, the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, smuggles her younger brother Orestes out of Mycenae to Phocia, in the hope that he can grow up in safety and return one day to avenge their father and claim the throne.

The Servant and Orestes are looking at Mycenae. The Servant describes how he smuggled Orestes out of the city as a child when his father Agamemnon was murdered, and that they have returned to avenge his death. The Servant urges Orestes to take action.

Orestes describes how he asked for guidance from the oracle at Delphi, and was advised how to take revenge for his father by the god Apollo. Orestes and the Servant discuss their plan to pretend Orestes is dead, and exit.

Electra mourns her father and prays that her brother will soon return to take revenge. She describes how she is treated in the palace. The chorus comforts and reassures her.

Chrysothemis scolds her sister Electra for continuing to mourn. She tells Electra that if she carries on grieving she will be locked up in a dungeon by her mother Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. Electra doesn’t understand why Chrysothemis doesn’t defend their father, and they argue about family honour. Chrysothemis tells Electra about a foreboding dream their mother had and then leaves.

Clytemnestra enters. She questions Electra’s sense of justice, and asks why she should be condemned when her actions were to avenge the sacrifice of her daughter. Electra argues that her sister Iphigenia’s death was sad but necessary, and accuses Clytemnestra of taking the law into her own hands.

The Servant arrives and tells the women that Orestes is dead. Electra is distraught, but Clytemnestra is relieved and invites the Servant into the palace.

Electra and the Chorus are mourning Orestes when Chrysothemis arrives to tell her she is certain Orestes is in Mycenae. Electra doesn’t believe her and tries to convince her that they should kill their mother themselves. Chysothemis refuses to agree and leaves.

Orestes enters but doesn’t recognise Electra. As she grieves for his death, he realises he is with his sister and reveals himself to her. They celebrate as the Servant returns from the palace, and then quickly plan Clytemnestra’s murder.

Orestes and the Servant enter the palace while Electra stands guard outside and encourages them. Clytemnestra’s cries can be heard as she is murdered, and Orestes reappears to confirm that she is dead.

Aegisthus arrives having heard that Orestes is dead. He is pleased and asks to see the corpse. Orestes presents Clytemnestra’s body covered in a cloth, and encourages Aegisthus to look. Aegisthus quickly realises what has happened, and realises he is about to be murdered. Orestes takes him into the house to finish the deed.

The Chorus conclude the play, saying that the suffering is over.

Kristin Scott Thomas

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CHARACTER BREAKDOWN

Electra The eldest surviving daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. She spends her time mourning her father’s murder, condemning her mother and waiting for her brother Orestes to return and avenge his death. She is essentially held prisoner in the palace and is not allowed to visit her father’s grave. She is entirely committed to ensuring justice is done to avenge her father.

Orestes The son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. Following his father’s murder Electra arranged for him to be smuggled away to Phocia to keep him safe as he was a young boy at the time. Seven years have passed and he has returned to avenge his father, accompanied by his tutor, the Servant.

Clytemnestra The Queen of Mycenae. She murdered her husband Agamemnon when he returned from war to avenge the death of their daughter Iphigenia, who Agamemnon sacrificed to a god while he was away. She now reigns alongside Aegisthus, her lover, although she doesn’t feel secure in her position. She feels threatened by her daughter Electra, and as such treats her very badly.

Chrysothemis The youngest daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. Although she recognises her mother’s wrongdoing, she refuses to condemn her in the way her sister Electra does. She isn’t driven by justice like her sister, instead believing she will gain the greatest benefits by siding with those in control.

Aegisthus Clytemnestra’s lover and was also responsible for the murder of Agamemnon. Like Clytemnestra, he is uneasy about their current situation and wants to eliminate any threats. He is cruel to Electra and celebrates Orestes’ supposed death.

The Servant Smuggled Orestes out of Mycenae after Agamemnon was murdered. While they were in Phocia he was Orestes’ tutor and guardian. He serves as a voice of wisdom and practicality, and also galvanizes Orestes into taking action.

The Chorus Made up of the women of the palace. They are fully in support of Electra and are there to guide and assist her.

Diana Quick Liz White Tyrone Huggins

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ELECTRA’S FAMILY TREE

Aerope

Helen(of Troy)

Menelaus(King of Sparta)

Agamemnon(King of Mycene)

Clytemnestra Aegisthus

Iphigenia Electra Chrysothemis Orestes

Atreus

Female

Male

Dead at start of play

Married

Marriage ended

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THEMES

Duty vs free will

Electra explores what happens when different forms of duty come into conflict. In the play we see duty to family, to the gods, to the state, to the dead and to the self. Which duty should take precedence, and do individuals have any choice over the matter? In much Greek mythology the gods play a significant role in deciding the fate of individuals. In the play, young Orestes seems to be commanded by Apollo and familial duty to murder his mother.

Does this clear him of responsibility for his crime? Could he disobey if he wanted, despite the history of murder and betrayal that have tormented his family for generations? The sisters Chrysothemis and Electra have a very different reaction to the duty they owe their murdered father – does this suggest there is some choice in how they interpret their familial duty?

Family

Electra’s family seems to be cursed, given that they have been plagued by murder and betrayal for several generations – Agamemnon’s parents also experienced terrible familial conflicts. Electra explores the limits of conflicting family loyalty, with different family relationships outdoing others. For example, Electra tells Clytemnestra that she could never be justified in murdering her husband, because of her duty as a wife, but that Agamemnon’s sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia was an unfortunate necessity. On the other hand, Clytemnestra felt she was duty-bound to revenge her daughter. Many of the characters also talk about ‘blood’ in reference to their bloodline or family tree, and Electra refers several times to Agamemnon as an oak cut down by Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. The Greeks felt that to kill your own family member was not just a crime in itself, but a crime against the bloodline as it stopped the continuance of the family name. Jack Lowden & Kristin Scott Thomas

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Conversation starter

Electra says to Orestes when they meet, “fate has guided you”. Look at Orestes’s retelling of Apollo’s message at the start of the play. Is there room for ambiguity or a different interpretation?

Conversation starter

Consider the different kinds of relationships and betrayals that exist within the family. Do any take precedence over others? Is murdering a family member worse than murder in general?

Gender

Throughout the play we are confronted with different expectations of men and women. Gender is significant from the start as Sophocles chose to name his play after Electra, whereas the writer Aeschylus called his version of the story The Orestia after her brother Orestes. Electra seems to be the driving force for the revenge, but despite being the eldest of the siblings, she waits for years for her younger brother to grow up so he can avenge their father. Only when Electra thinks Orestes is dead does

she consider the murder herself and even then her sister Chrysothemis suggests that, as a woman, Electra cannot consider killing Aegisthus. At this time women were not allowed to perform in the theatre, and were also not recognised as citizens of the state. But, like her mother before her, Electra refuses to behave in the way society expects a woman to behave.

Justice and revenge

The narrative of Electra follows the “an eye for an eye” justice code. The problem with this approach, however, is that it is a never-ending chain. Someone murders and another murders to avenge the dead, so then the new murderer must be murdered for vengeance, and so on. Many characters, Clytemnestra, Orestes, and Electra among them, claim that they are acting in the interests of justice.

With no trial and no divine intervention, who has the right to judge whether these actions are morally right? Sophocles is concerned with morality as a topic of debate, but seems to have made the play intentionally morally ambiguous, leaving the final question of justice with his audience. Who is right? Is it just to take revenge? Is there a better alternative?

Images in the rehearsal room

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Conversation starter

Discuss why a man should be allowed to do something that a woman is not allowed to do in the play. Have our expectations of different genders changed since the play was written?

Conversation starter

It is often the case in tragedies that a character can find themselves caught between two ‘wrong’ options according to different notions of justice. Is there a ‘right road’ that any of the characters could, or should, have taken?

GREEK STAGES

The format of the stage can have a significant impact on how an audience experiences a play. Throughout theatre history many different kinds of stage layouts have been used, each with their own advantages and limitations. When Electra was originally performed it would have been seen in an amphitheatre, the kind of staging we most strongly associate with Greek theatre.

Greek amphitheatres were originally temporary structures built out of wood and were always outdoors. As the popularity of the performances increased, these were more and more often built in stone and became larger and larger. One of the most famous amphitheatres, which can still be seen today, is at Epidaurus in southern Greece, which holds up to 14,000 people. Many theatres were built against

a stunning backdrop of natural beauty, which was intended to intensify the sense of awe of the gods that was interwoven throughout performances.

The image below shows the layout and key features of a Greek amphitheatre, based on the theatre at Epidaurus.

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A Orchestra Rounded area where the chorus performed. B Altar Middle of orchestra, religious significance.C Skene Background building behind the action.D Theatron Audience seating area.E Parodos Side entrance used by the chorus.

Greek theatres were designed so that all members of the audience would have a good view of the stage, and so that sound would travel well to the hundreds or thousands of people watching. Many writers performed in their plays as actors, although Sophocles decided not to due to having a weak voice, which suggests volume and projection were very important for audiences to hear. Costumes and masks had exaggerated features so that anyone sat further away could identify the characters and follow the story easily.

Some of the first buildings used for theatre in the UK were introduced by the Romans, based on the model of the Greek theatre. Similarities can be seen with open-air Elizabethan theatres such as the Globe, which were created hundreds of years later.

For the production of Electra at The Old Vic, the theatre, which is usually a proscenium arch, has been transformed into a theatre-in-the-round. In the UK this kind of theatre became increasingly popular in the 1960s, and was often used by experimental groups and small studio theatres who wanted to the reject traditional forms of theatre. It has continued to be used as a creative alternative to the more common proscenium format, with the creation of large-scale in-the-round theatres such as the Royal Exchange in Manchester.

Although this recent history might lead you to think that theatre-in-the-round is a modern invention, its roots are actually in the ritualistic singing and dancing performed by the Ancient Greeks before it evolved into classical Greek theatre as described above. The round ‘orchestra’, which was part of the ancient amphitheatre stage, was where the chorus performed. This is the legacy of the earlier choral performances which were performed by large groups in a circle in the town marketplace or public square.

One of the key features of theatre-in-the-round is that it removes the ‘fourth wall’ and brings the audience into the same space as the performers. It has been suggested that this change in dynamic forces the audience to become active rather than passive spectators, as they might be in an end-on or proscenium theatre. There is usually less set in this kind of theatre as the audience become the backdrop for each other, and any large piece of furniture or scenery is likely to obscure the view.

For more information on working in the round, see the interviews with the Electra designer and director.

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CREATING A CHORUS

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Choruses played a particular role in Greek drama, and the principles of choral speak and movement can be adapted to create very striking pieces of modern theatre.

Connected movement

Ask students to walk around the room at a brisk pace, filling the whole space without collisions. Without anyone giving any signals or taking the lead, find a shared impulse to stop. Encourage students to make it a clean stop, rather than gradually slowing or stumbling. When fully still, wait for a shared moment for everyone to start walking again. This may take a few seconds or several minutes, and students new to this exercise may take a while to relax and feel comfortable with the anticipation. The key thing is that the group gets to a point where they can all respond as one and make choices together without explicitly communicating or following a leader.

Shoaling

Bring students into a tight circle all facing the same direction. Set off together (as they did above) and move as a mass, all at the same speed and keeping the same distance between each other. Allow students to explore the room, encountering obstacles like walls or stacked chairs. Whoever ends up at the ‘front’ of the group sets the new direction and speed. The aim is for the chorus to move as fluidly as possible, like a shoal of fish. Once they have got the hang of this, ask the group to try and convey a mood or an atmosphere.

Connected vocals

The same principles apply to the movement version of this exercise above. Create a circle with students facing each other. Ask the group to inhale and exhale together. As above, find a shared moment for the in and out breath, and then return to breathing normally. After this is established you can vocalise the out breath with an “ah” sound which begins and ends together. Work towards turning the sounds into a word, ensuring the separate sounds are articulated cleanly as a group. As you become more and more practised, try different scenarios where students move around the room, close their eyes and work in smaller groups.

Choral speaking

Choose a sentence from a play or a story and ask one member of the group to perform it. If you can, record their performance. Ask the rest of the group to copy the way the sentence was delivered, practising individually and matching the speed, pronunciation and inflection. Then ask them all to speak the sentence together. Record this and play it back, it should sound like one person with many voices, rather than a group. This may take some finessing, so keep practising until the group are happy with their performance. Play back the original solo speaker and then the group version. How do they compare? Do they sound as alive and as engaging? Keep practising and try to string a few sentences together using the connected vocal task as they progress.

Creating a choral scene

Find a chorus speech with some interesting, juicy words in it, and create a choral version using the method above. Ask students as individuals or in groups to choose a different word from the text, and create a gesture or physical movement to complement it. Share and practise these movements in the group until everyone is confident with the movements. Arrange the chorus ‘on stage’ facing out to the audience, and try the whole thing together. As with the previous exercises, no-one in the group should lead or pull focus, and the choral speaking should be as good as it was before the actions were added. Once the chorus is confident, try exploring the stage with shoaling.

Why were you interested in directing this play? It’s an incredibly accessible play because Sophocles, in Frank McGuinness’ same brilliant version, writes about what it is to be human in a really honest, committed, intense way. We all have the primitive deep drives that the characters have. It’s such a privilege to direct a play with that psychological insight and the bravery of its execution.

I also think that most of the best plays, like the best songs, films and poems are really just about one thing. And that is grief and the processing of loss. And Electra, out of all the Greek tragedies, is absolutely suffused with loss, with what it is to grieve and with different types of grieving: pathological, repetitive, addictive grieving for a father that died many years ago, fresh grief for a brother who’s just died. All the way through the play I think we’re asked to connect and empathise with what the strengths and limitations are of different types of grieving.

It’s also really profound in its analysis of trauma. A number of years ago a mother killed a father and the traumatic aftershock of that act has atrophied and frozen Electra. All the characters are in the shadow of that act. I’m interested in how the writer and the play is exploring the legacy of trauma, whether healing is possible, and is violent, bloody revenge a type of healing? It’s a dangerous play, because if it works we become so grafted onto the protagonist Electra so that by the end we become complicit with a double murder. I love the play’s danger.

How will this production be different to how the play was performed originally? When you read these plays I think you have a very profound internal experience of the play. We’re not setting it in Mycenae in 400 BCE, but neither are we setting it somewhere specific. You’re just having a profound, poetic, visceral experience of it.

What I’m trying to do is to set it in a kind of elemental, primal, austere zone. Where there’s earth, water, fire, air and characters. Electra is a play where the Gods aren’t really present. It’s all about people – everything that happens is to do with people’s choices. You can place it in a kind of timeless zone where you’re not so bothered about the cut of a tunic, or whether we use mobile phones or not. It’s just there, with a kind of thrumming liveness.

How have you found working in the round at The Old Vic? I felt that I couldn’t do the play end-on, I love the proscenium and I do most of my work in that forum. But Electra has an even greater chance of working, I think, if the audience ‘become’ the chorus, the audience become complicit and involved, which is something that’s wonderful about the renovation at The Old Vic and the way the space is working at the moment. Working in it is lovely, it’s very freeing. You’re not really staging pictures, although I don’t really do that anyway. It’s simply about helping

actors find their character’s purposes and there’s an honesty about it.

Do you have any advice for aspiring directors? I would say that directing is a really rewarding nourishing and challenging job that is complex but very simple. The simplicity is about listening, enabling, reading the play deeply, and creating an environment where fellow collaborators can work together to make something true, deep and important. But it’s a career that won’t be handed to you on a plate, and you have to have patience, and tenacity, and luck, and great stamina to get through the years when practising your craft won’t be lucrative financially. Yet, you can always practise it, there’s lots of ways of developing your skills – you can work with young people, you can read lots of plays on your own. We need good directors, we need passionate people coming through who are really enthusiastic and believe that theatre is a really important art, so your passion and your belief in the importance of the craft is vital.

IAN RICKSON Director

Ian Rickson

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How do you go about creating a design for such an ancient play? Every play or musical or opera, they all throw up certain problems. It’s a puzzle, and in some ways this play isn’t so problematic because it takes place in a universal space. We know we have to be outside the gates of the palace, and we’re not going to turn it on its head and set it under a motorway. We are accepting the fact that it is an ancient play which is set in Ancient Greece, but it’s about universal issues.

Are there any particular themes or images that have inspired the design? I looked at references for war torn environments, and considered if we were setting it modern day or in Ancient Greece. I think if we set it completely in Ancient Greece it becomes too alienating because people wore such a different style of clothing. However, in terms of the costume there is a whiff of something ancient, ancient civilisation rather than Ancient Greece I suppose. Other worldliness.

There is talk about a tree and the shade, and in a way the play’s about life and growing and genealogy so I made a choice that we would have a tree. Originally we were considering a complete tree with a bow over the entire action and with it all under dappling. But it felt too protected and rather poetically romantic rather than visceral and cruel. So I got rid of the tree’s feminine quality, the leaves, the weeping branches and it’s actually now very much a male symbol. It guards the tomb of her father where she’s never allowed to go. It’s ruined and it’s dead.

How is designing a show in the round different to an end-on show? Oddly, when I often design a show and get a slight hiccup, I do the reverse. I say well if we were doing it at the Royal Exchange in Manchester how would we do it there? I try to deconstruct the notion of it. Being in the round actually frees you up in many ways.

One thing we discussed was the interior of the theatre, where the audience sit. It’s very full on, it’s a bit tinsel town, and we thought about covering it like they’ve

done in The Crucible, maybe cladding it all in concrete. But then you have to ask, where is the audience? If you’re making the balcony fronts like the set, are we in the palace, are we in an arena? It works for some plays, but I just don’t think it does for Electra.

What is your relationship with the director like? Different directors work in different ways. Me and Ian [the director] have worked together a few times before and he likes to chew the cud and mill over ideas. I don’t like directors who say “I really think it’s got to be this”, because it’s not really very interesting to work that way.

He was very keen on the elemental – water, fire, earth. And also he was very keen that we shouldn’t be too gimmicky, that we just allow the play to speak for itself and not set it on “Planet Zog”. There’s trust, for instance, we’d had a couple of meetings and then he was away for a bit and during this time I changed the wall and tipped it forward. He was a bit concerned we were making it operatic, and my response was that I want to make the palace a prison. This darkness that holds the family, I wanted to make it overpowering in the space, to dominate. A good director–designer relationship is a bit like a marriage, you second guess each other, you nudge each other and you compromise and you push each other towards something.

What advice would you give to young designers? Believe in your vison and actually go for it, just do it. I didn’t train. I read Theatre at university and loved acting, directing, designing, loved all of it. But I was always obsessed with how things looked. After leaving university I applied for every job, totally unrealistically, and I was turned down everywhere. A small theatre in Worcester who had already turned me down re-advertised the same job again. I rang them up and they said the same thing – “you’re not qualified”. I told them I had a portfolio of work, all you have to do is spend 15 minutes with me, they did, and I got the job. That’s what I mean, believe in your vision, believe in yourself and go for it.

MARK THOMPSON Designer

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What attracted you to being involved in this production? Thalissa Teixeira (TT): The challenge of performing in something which is so ancient, and is such an ancient way of communicating, to a modern audience who will be coming in to watch it from their day-to-day lives. Julia Dearden (JD): One of the brilliant things about working with Ian [the Director] is that it’s not too reverential. He’s working in a way which makes the play accessible, and the themes of the play are very much of the moment. Golda Rosheuvel (GD): I was fascinated that Ian had called a day’s workshop for a few actors to come in and explore what might be possible with the chorus. To come up with some ideas and to hear our thoughts about the play and how we would approach doing it.

The chorus in a Greek play usually represents a whole community, how will just three of you represent that many people? TT: Originally there would have been 15 members of the chorus. So the fact that there’s three of us means that we can draw on our own character’s life a lot more and where we’ve come from. Whether we work for the palace, who employs us, how we might have been affected by the war. I think that’s something Ian’s really keen on bringing into this performance, the memory of the war.

How do you work together as a chorus? GD: It’s very human, we’re individual people, we have individual stories, but we are together on stage. We each have our individual attitudes towards Electra. JD: We’re now in week three, and decisions about the chorus are still not completely fixed. It’s been talked about at one time about being a main artery to her. We are connected to her, but we’re not ‘of’ her. TT: We have a job to look after her, we truly love her. We are there to make sure she doesn’t come to harm, or doesn’t do too much harm herself.

How have you found the rehearsal process so far? GD: All my expectations have been fulfilled. JD: It’s very exciting, and it’s very exciting to work with people who are extremely good at their jobs. Working with the best, it’s just such a treat. TT: Working with people who are willing to be vulnerable, it’s good to be in that environment.

What would your advice be to any students thinking of pursuing acting as a career? JD: My advice to anyone who wants to act now would be to learn another skill, something practical like electrician, plumber, driver, so that when they’re not acting they can take it up quickly because very often when you’re not working the problem is you think “I can’t do that job because what happens if I get an interview, what happens if I get a job”. Just learn a practical skill. That would be my advice. TT: You basically end up with this strange nomadic life, you get placed in different places, you get put with a whole load of different people and you have to be open enough to let that path take you and enjoy that. If you want to tell a story, and are keen to give your heart out and get a point across then it’s something you should do. GD: Don’t be fooled by the glamour. It’s not glamorous, its hard work. If you’re up for pursuing your passion fiercely and disappointingly, an actor’s life for you. JD: Follow your dream just follow it, go for it! Don’t let anything get in your way.

JULIA DEARDEN, GOLDA ROSHEUVEL & THALISSA TEIXEIRA Chorus

Julia Dearden, Golda Rosheuvel & Thalissa Teixeira

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books Sophocles, Electra and Other Plays translation and introduction by EF Watling (1953)

Strong, Donald E, The Classical World (1965)

Wiles, David, Greek Theatre Performance: An Introduction (2000)

Worthen, WB, The Wadsworth Anthology of Drama (2003)

Websites www.britannica.com

www.ancient.eu

www.ancientgreece.com

www.sophocles.net

www.theatrestrust.org.uk/resources/exploring-theatres

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