Elektra at Duke of York’s Theatre – A Radical West End Revival

Elektra

Duke of York’s Theatre, London | until Sat 12th April

Elektra arrives at Duke of York’s Theatre, bringing a bold and unconventional take on Sophocles’ Greek tragedy. With Brie Larson making her West End debut, this production strips the classic down to a minimalist, high-concept experience that challenges expectations. Tickets are available through ATG Tickets for those wanting to experience this daring adaptation.

The current fascination with Greek drama on stage & screen continues with this new version of Sophocles’ classic play, which is only the fifth major London revival in the past 75 years. Given this is directed by Daniel Fish, who gave us the radically different bluegrass version of Oklahoma! set in a community centre, this was never going to be a straightforward interpretation.

Set in the city of Mycenae a few years after the Trojan War, the play tells of a bitter struggle for justice by Elektra and her brother Orestes for the murder of their father Agamemnon by Clytemnestra.

It is stripped back and minimalist, an empty stage that rotates with just a white cyclorama, some microphones, a few plastic chairs, a paint sprayer, and floating above the stage, an airship.

In the title role, we have Brie Larson, who is most probably best known as Captain Marvel in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. She is both making her West End debut and also her first stage production.

Elektra is an incredible role. It is seen as a female equivalent to Hamlet (who is also avenging the death of his father), and she starts the play as she remains throughout, angry and raging against her mother, Clytemnestra, played here by the film, TV, and stage star Stockard Channing, most probably best known from Grease or The West Wing.

Larson is given various handheld microphones that have varying tones as well as a vocoder pedal, which enables her to distort the sound. She also sings the word “no” every time it occurs, at different pitches and durations.

She acquits herself well in a strong and committed performance, and her singing background and experience with her band are clearly in evidence, and she is to be commended for taking on such a challenging role and production that is most definitely not “safe”!

Not only does she have to navigate a constantly revolving stage, but she also has to coordinate the use of the aforementioned paint sprayer to spray both her cast members and some of the cyclorama, the purpose of which I am at a loss to explain!

As in most Greek dramas, there is a chorus, which here is represented by six women who sing close harmony accompaniment while choreographing movement with their microphone stands, and it is one of the more successful aspects of the production.

In one of the bizarre and frustrating decisions, none of the other actors are given microphones. So, your ear has to adjust constantly between amplified and unamplified voices, meaning you struggle to hear, and I ultimately gave up.

Whilst it is encouraging to see challenging and innovative theatre in a commercial production, I just found it a tad impenetrable and committed the biggest crime in the theatre, being boring and unengaging. I found myself sneaking a look at my watch, which in a play that only runs 1 hour 15 minutes is not a good sign!

It’s best to approach it as an art performance piece rather than a drama, even with strong performances.

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