Thyestes

Synopsis

Rats scuttle across the floor and disembodied shadows dance furiously across the wall in a bold new work of visual performance, experimenting with the possibilities generated by the latest digital technologies and forging new territory in the interplay between the live and video in theatre.

Our Review:

11 June 2009

The house of Tantalus really like to keep it in the family. A few years before, the head of the clan served up his own son on a plate and now Atreus and Thyestes are kicking up one hell of a brotherly tiff. This lot make Christmas in Albert Square look like a walk in the park.

I don’t understand why Thyestes is so rarely performed. Granted, it’s not an easy play to stomach but Seneca dishes out a terrifying fable. We are presented with the devastating continuity of bloodlust and Caryl Churchill’s brisk, sparse translation spares us nothing.

To enter the main studio at the Arcola is to find yourself in a dank, underground cellar strewn with filing cabinets and dark secrets, into which the sun hopelessly tries to break. There is little doubt we are in hell.

Polly Findlay has orchestrated a truly haunting production that conjures up a genuinely eerie sense of menace and dread. Mutterings from the floors above get closer and absent children flicker acros...

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