Greek tragedies aren’t really my thing. The shows are usually hard to sit through and the endings are always so sad that I want to jump off a bridge after watching them. Kidding. But seriously, Greek tragedies are hard to produce and even harder to watch if done badly. Thankfully, Kiln Theatre’s production of Girl on an Alter by Marina Carr was just what a Greek tragedy out to be.
The play is a modernized version of the story of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. In summary, Agamemnon is King of Mycenae and Clytemnestra is his queen. Together they have an older daughter and a set of twins. The Trojan War is raging, and the gods were upset with Agamemnon and demanded a sacrifice. This sacrifice just happened to be his own 12-year-old daughter, Iphigenia. Clytemnestra is devastated by the murder of her daughter and is wracked with grief. Agamemnon continues fighting in the war for 10 years and returns home to find his wife had a child with his cousin Aegisthus. Clytemnestra cannot forgive her husband and he throws her into the slave quarters where her child by Aegisthus dies. Clytemnestra’s father, Tyndareus, is made aware that his daughter has been thrown out. As Agamemnon’s once mentor, he goes to take his daughter from him. This causes a war to begin between Tyndareus and Agamemnon. Agamemnon eventually wins and Clytemnestra is imprisoned once more. She goes to speak to her husband by his request and murders him with an axe.
Since the play was modernized, I expected the set to be modern as well. The set for the play was very interesting. The stage was made to look like it was a blackened shore and there was a single bed in the middle of the stage. The set never changed, however the back wall opened up on occasion to reveal a door that was sometimes used by the characters. My description does not do this set justice. The acting was incredible. The entire play is a mix between active dialogue between the characters, and the actors narrating certain things the other characters are doing without us actually seeing the actors do those things. It takes incredible skill to keep an audience enthralled in a show that has so little action actually taking place. This cast did an incredible job and I felt honored to have witnessed such a tight production!
Theatre in London U of A 