Mourning Becomes Revenge: Electra’s Reception History on the Greek and International stage.

 by Dr. Natasha Remoundou-Howley

"When “the Repressed” of their culture and their society come back,

it is an explosive return which is absolutely shattering , staggering, overturning,

                                                       with a force never let loose before."                                                                                

                                                                      Hélène Cixous  

 Ding dá adhmad féin a scoilteann an leamnhán[1].

In contemporary Irish adaptations of Greek tragedy, Electra seems to elude us.  Unlike Antigone, Medea, Oedipus, and Philoctetes, Agamemnon’s troubled daughter is not the most popular tragic heroine among the characters proposed by Greek tragedy for the Irish theatre. Sophocles, however, remains the most adapted tragedian in Irish drama with at least 17 adaptations, versions and translations. In this long and impressive list, Frank McGuinness’s version written in 1997, is the only one that revivifies Sophocles’ Electra, the embodiment of eternal sorrow and revenge. Taking note of McGuinness's adaptation, this essay seeks to highlight the wide diversity and complex interconnections between different theatrical traditions, performance styles and scenic vocabularies that inform the body of productions of Electra.

                                                      The Lion Gate at Mycenae, Greece.

Aeschylus' The Oresteia dealt with the curse of the house of Atreus (the Atreides), Electra’s forefather and her dysfunctional family, long before Sophocles. It is interesting to observe that on the antipodis of one sole Sophoclean Electra adapted by Frank McGuinness, the Aeschylean trilogy or some of the individual plays that construct it have been adapted in Irish drama a few times: Edward and Christine Longford adapted The Oresteia in 1935, Louis MacNeice wrote his Agamemnon in 1936, and more recently, Tom Murphy's The Sanctuary Lamp in 1975, Tom Paulin’s Seize the Fire in 1990, Marinna Carr’s Ariel in 2002, and Simon Doyle’s Off Plan in 2010, are all examples of Irish playwrights that have been inspired by the mythical saga of revenge and violence proposed by Aeschylean drama. In the poem "Mycenae Lookout," Seamus Heaney writes that there is "No such thing / as innocent / by-standing," employing the myth of the curse of the Atreides in a work that alludes to the politics of Northern Ireland, in particular the IRA ceasefire that began in August, 1994. Through the lens of the Troubles in the North, the poem does something greater: Heaney rereads and rewrites lyrically the mythological Aeschylean oeuvre to interrogate how the violence of a community affects humans and restrains the individual to act autonomously within the collective. More importantly it scrutinizes cultures of silence suggesting that connivance of others' crimes cannot bring about resolution nor redemption. In the end, there will always be a tragedy. The poem suspends meaning in a grey area, inscribing a question mark very similar to the one Sophocles leaves us with in the end of his Electra: "What happens to Electra after the deed is done?"  

                            The encounter of Electra and Orestes at the tomb of Agamemnon (4th century BC).
                                                    

Greek tragedy, as a convention, has long been employed as a medium of public discourse to critique political and social injustices at important historical junctures. Because the subversive plots it proposes have the power to serve as useful disguises for the expression of prohibited views and censored ideas, artists and dissidents have turned to the genre in order to use it as a vehicle for protest. Interest in Greek tragedy as a body of texts whose heroes and heroines are icons of political resistance, has also long formed an undercurrent to Ireland’s postcolonial writing. From Derry to Athens, the Electras, the Antigones, the Medeas are all fighting against oppression of every kind and magnitude. The diverse productions and texts of Electra that have reemerged, grapple with a series of questions as they try to re-imagine her on stage.  These are plays that restage over and over a call for new spaces and new possibilities in political and ethical thought that resonate with contemporary society’s preoccupations without eschewing the aesthetic point tragedy makes. 

I care not to live by such law: Electra in Ancient Greece

Among the Electras of the ancient world, the Sophoclean Electra haunted Western drama like no other. I say this in light of the fact that Euripides also wrote an Electra and Aeschylus presented her in his Libation Bearers, before Sophocles. Aeschylus' work is preoccupied with Atis (divine wrath) and Dike (Justice), while Sophocles dealt with the question of autonomy, that ethical dilemma that baffles man at the crossroads of decision-making: here the line between personal duty and tragic choice is indistinguishable. The Euripidean premise projects the issue of vengeful passion and the demythification of Gods and heroes. The common feature of all of these ancient versions of the myth of the Atreides is the language of humanism and their main theme, the human condition.  Is man indeed the measure of all things? How can man act autonomously with and without the gods?

Electra forms part of the so-called Trojan epic plays and it was sub-categorized into the Nostos cycle (nostos in Greek means “the strong desire, longing, yierning for the day of returning home”- note the irony behind this term in the context of the unfolding drama). The profoundly abyssal measure of Electra’s despair, her wrath, her hatred, her readiness and decisiveness to commit matricide unaided and unaffected by any mortal or immortal agent, her emotional turbulence that constructs the theatrical anagnorisis (recognition) with her brother Orestes and the sibling exoneration from divine and mortal sanction in the end of the play are just a few of the features that collect the personality puzzle of a radically provocative dramatic persona. However, the trait that seems to fascinate dramatists, is that Electra alone remains dedicated to her desire, unapologetic and unrepentant just like another Sophoclean heroine, Antigone. Throughout the tragedy she remains proud, obstinate, a living dead, all for the love of a memory. In Electra’s case that memory is both fond and traumatic: it is the remembrance of her beloved father Agamemnon and his violent death by her mother Clytaemnestra and her lover Aegisthus.  In fact, Electra’s figuration as the ultimate avenger informs her reception history in Western drama. That this avenger happens to be female complicates her representation on many levels.

             

The theatre of Dionysus on the outskirts of the Acropolis in Athens.

During the 5th century BC, when Electra was first staged at the Theatre of Dionysus,  legend has it that the Greek actor Polos impersonating Electra on stage, held on tight to the urn containing the ashes of his own dead child. Polos' empeirical acting technique could not be any closer to spychological realism. Like a metonymic trope for the art of theatre and the blurry line between reality and illusion, the image stays with us for its evocative dramatic force. It constitutes the most memorable scene in the play, along with the poignant scene of recognition and matricide.

Polos and the other distant forefathers of theatrical performance in the Great Dionysia were actors of  exceptional technique and phonetic supremacy, but above all, they were masters of the “three-actor” rule: this translated into an ability to play multiple roles, to metamorphose into different characters, from one mask to another. From the middle of the 5th century, when the acting prizes were introduced for the protagonists, an actor was highly esteemed. The most famous performers, followers of God Dionysus, were the first professional actors: they toured their plays around Greece and they were getting very well-paid for their craft. Simultaneously, the evolution of the tragic mask, the stage, and costume design, set the foundations for later theatrical conventions.

The subsequent developments in direction and performance along with the textual adaptations of the various tragic texts form a vast repository of theatrical traditions and histories that is defined by sheer evolution.  Like tracing the multiple layers of a palimpsest, texts acts as parchments upon which different readings and writings are inscribed, erased and reinscribed in a number of languages and interpretations, times, and cultures. This addition of new elements is incessant and organic: while new readings/writings emerge, the old ones cannot be completely efaced.  The material of the ancient text remains intact through time, but every new staging, every new performance regenerates the meanings of the old text and creates new readings and new interpretations. From this mythological womb arise the various adaptations, rewritings, and rereadings of the Greek tragedy.

  

The Sophoclean Electra might not have enjoyed the rich dramatic and philosophical career that Oedipus and Antigone have, however it would be fair to admit that she has a long tradition in performance history as an “unpopular” tragic heroine. Violent, barbarous, hysteric, scandalous, devoid of remorse, are just a few of the derogatory terms attributed to Electra through the centuries. Regardless of interpretations, mistrust in Electra as a pure, noble heroine of the stature of an Antigone lies in Sophocles’ own portrayal of her in his text. Not only does Electra not feel sorry for her desire to kill her mother for 1200 lines uninterruptedly -in a total of 1500,- but Sophocles incorporates a paradox on top of her lack of remorse: she is murderous, savage, and wild (foniki) but also virginal (parthenos kore) and thus fragile and pure. The Greek Canon contains a series of female avengers like Clytaemnestra who kills her husband and Medea who kills her own offspring, none of which, obviously, are virginal.  Electra would have also shocked and terrified 5^th century audience members for she is Greek, unlike the barbarian Medea. {Athens vs. Athens (Sophocles interrogating Athens)}. Nor is Electra blinded by ignorance, a divine plan, or her destiny like Oedipus. Her hatred, liminally standing between mourning and revenge, remains up until the very end of the tragedy like no other:  it is as excessive, obsessive and incessant as in the opening scene of the play. She is eager to kill without the contribution of any mortal and especially without the demand or order of any immortal. Like the foreigner Medea, the indigenous and virginal Electra survives and unlike even the Euripidean Electra, she is unrepentant. Her mea culpa is never uttered, articulated or even hinted at, in Sophocles' text.


Natasha is participating as a dramaturge in the production of Frank McGuinness's Electra. 
Bibliography: 

[1] Irish proverb. Its translation from the Irish is: “The elm is split with a wedge of its own wood.”

Bibliography:

Dunn F. M., Sophocles’ Electra in Performance, M & P: Stutgart, 1996.

Fischer-Lichte, Erika. Theatre, Sacrifice, Ritual: Exploring Forms of Political Theatre. Routledge:        

       London, 2005.

Remoundou-Howley, Anastasia. Palimpsests of Antigone: Contemporary Irish Versions of Sophocles' 
        Tragedy. Doctoral Thesis, National University of Ireland, Galway, 2011.