Introducing "Electra" at NUI Galway

In March 2014, a group of NUI Galway Drama students will stage a production of Sophocles' Electra in an adaptation by Frank McGuinness (with rights obtained through Samuel French) as part of our annual theatre week on campus.

This blog documents our process from concept and design through rehearsal to production.  It will feature the writing of lecturers, scholars, students and designers.  

Over the course of our production, we will also produce a study guide aimed at anyone with a general interest in the subject, but more specifically secondary school and first year university students.  

Why Electra? 

Sophocles' Electra remains one of the most enduring classics of world drama, appearing in countless translations and productions since its premiere in 4^th century BCE.  The epic story of the House of Atreus spans generations with bloodshed, revenge and redemption always following close upon each other’s heels.  In Electra, we meet Electra mourning the death of her father, Agammenon, at the hands of her mother, Clytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus.  Convinced of her total solitude after the death of her brother, Orestes, Electra hungers for justice in the face of disempowerment until a familiar-looking stranger arrives and transforms her fate and the history of the House of Atreus. 

We are staging Frank McGuinness’s adaptation of Sophocles’ Electra which was described by New York Times critic Peter Mark as a “sleek and hypnotic text” which showcases “soul-satisfying drama at its most passionately, intensely alive.” By working with this text as interpreted by a living Irish playwright, we will grapple directly with what Greek tragedy means to us now in Ireland- as university students, as members of the Galway community and as human beings.  Our aspiration will be not to recreate the performance conditions in which Sophocles premiered his work but bring this work close to us through our body and voices.  As texts travel across cultures and across time, they shift in meaning and impact while retaining their own unique power as individual works of art.  What is our Electra and what can we learn by returning to the classics through the lens of the now?

When and Where

Sophocles' Electra, in an adaptation by Frank McGuinness
Directed by Charlotte McIvor
March 9, 10 and 11 

10:30AM (10th and 11th only) and 8PM 

Running time, 90 minutes approximately
The Cube
Tickets are available through the NUI Galway Socs Box or by contacting us at electraproduction2014@gmail.com.  

Matinee tickets for groups of ten or more secondary school students will be available for €10 with free tickets for accompanying teachers.