Mourning Becomes Electra

Synopsis

Murder, love, lust and betrayal. Eugene O’Neill’s supremely powerful masterpiece retells the Greek tragedy of Orestia in the context of the American Civil War. As one of the greatest American dramatists, O’Neill crafted the relentlessly passionate and striking drama centred around a family’s loss of love, humanity and compassion.

Our Review:

28 November 2003

This dramatic marathon is Eugene O'Neill's take on the Oresteia, served up with a hefty wedge of Freud and a slice of old-fashioned melodrama on the side. O'Neill's vision - which contains enough murder, adultery, suicide and incest to keep a soap opera producer happy for months - offers us a world of family horror as id and thanatos collide on the way to the inevitably doomed conclusion.

Mourning Becomes Electra is even darker than Aeschylus' original. Here, there's no redemption for Orestes; the play unfolds adding horror to horror. But Howard Davies' production never slips into histrionics and concentrates on sexual desire and guilt that lies at the heart of this unremitting examination of family politics.

O'Neill's version of Clytaemnestra, Christine Mannon, is more one-dimensional than the Greek original. It's too easy to present her as an unfeeling, murderous adulteress. But, in an outstanding performance, Helen Mirren breathes life in...

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Latest User Review

USER: Whatsonstage.com (195.144.130.1) - 30 January 2004:

A curious thing: with a four-and-a-half-hour marathon you'd expect to start the evening feeling bright and end it by wilting. This great production did exactly the revese to me: after a week of snow and headaches I only made the trek up to London because I couldn't bear to waste my precious ticket. By 10.40pm I was on a high, such is the greatness of this magnificent achievement. Maxwell Cooter is spot on in his review - not least in singling out Paul Hilton for praise. He was astonishing, and hasn't received the credit he deserves for this play. It was a wonderful evening. Job...

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