“This is not an ‘Oresteia’ for classicists,” Ms. McLaughlin — a playwright, actor and old friend from college — told me later in New York. To understand how powerfully urgent this new telling is, and how it speaks to our time in a different voice, you have to look to the reasons Aeschylus wrote his version and Ms. McLaughlin wrote hers. There weren’t Tonys back then, but Aeschylus did win first prize for “The Oresteia” at the Dionysia dramatic competition in 458 B.C. In his version of the Orestes tale, the immortals play a crucial role, both inciting the tragedy and trying to corral it. In turn, his wife, Clytemnestra, kills him; their son Orestes, egged on by Apollo, kills her; and the vengeful Furies drive Orestes mad.

Source: New York Times May 26, 2019 19:30 UTC