After the immense success of Les Damnés, revived this season, Ivo van Hove is reunited with the Troupe for a new epic about the house of Atreus. Stating that all his projects are born from “love at first sight” for a text, he combines two Euripides plays that tell the story of Electra and Orestes in its continuity, or how a brother and a sister meet and unite in the revenge they foment against their mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus.
This new production recount an entire episode in the history of the house of Atreus, the last in a long cycle of murder and revenge. Electra and Orestes’ father Agamemnon was murdered by his wife and lover on his return from the Trojan War. Aegisthus now reigns in Argos and the young Orestes has been sent into exile. Electra takes place years later at a time when Aegisthus has called for the murder of Orestes. The latter, obeying an oracle of Apollo, presents himself as a stranger to his sister, with whom he plots to avenge their father. The second tragedy continues the story after the matricide committed by Orestes. The latter is hunted by the Erinyes and must answer for his act before justice.
Known for his ability to “unfold” texts on stage, the artistic director of Toneelgroep Amsterdam constantly renews his aesthetic and his relationship with actors. Claiming to not have a designated method, here he draws on the ancient to celebrate theatre as a social event and takes hold of the myth with a keen sense of its modernity. A myth which, after its initial Parisian run, will travel back to its land of origin to be performed in the exceptional setting of the ancient theatre of Epidaurus.

NEW PRODUCTION
REPERTOIRE ENTRY
Warning: some scenes may offend the sensitivity of young audiences

In cinemas
Pathé Live: 23 May

On Tour
GREECE Ancient Theater of Epidaurus JULY 2019

With the participation of The Athens and Epidaurus Festival

French translation published by Éditions Gallimard in the Folio théâtre collection

BETWEEN THE COMÉDIE-FRANÇAISE and Greek theatre, there is a long history. Perpetual renewing itself, this history alternates between borrowings and emancipation. Euripides, the most tragic of Greek poets according to Aristotle, inspired two plays performed on the stage of the Comédie-Française in 1681, that is to say one year after its foundation: Oreste (by Le Clerc and Boyer, after Iphigenia in Aulis) and Hercule (by La Tuilerie, after Herakles). Even though he remains the most performed Greek poet –far ahead of his compatriots Aeschylus, Aristophanes and Sophocles, compared to whom Latin theatre in fact has the air of a poor relation– it is primarily through adaptations that Euripides is performed, most famously in the works of Racine. In the nineteenth century, the attention paid to the original work, visible in the use of antique costumes and sets, was part of the new wave of enthusiasm for Greco-Roman antiquity, which had already been idealised during the Renaissance. As the twentieth century approached, the translations become more faithful to the originals.

Over the centuries, the heroes of Greek theatre, whose modernity is praised by Jacqueline de Romilly, have therefore provided actors with choice roles. As for Greek history and its famous episodes such as the origins and consequences of the Trojan War, it has fueled, through Racine, the imagination of playwrights up the twentieth century as well as the Repertoire of the Comédie-Française, enriched by Giraudoux’s La Guerre de Troie n’aura pas lieu (The Trojan War Shall not Be), (directed by Raymond Gérôme, 1988), Kleist’s Penthesilea (directed by Jean Liermier, 2008), and Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida (directed by Jean-Yves Ruf, 2013).

How should ancient theatre be staged today? While the mysteries of The Bacchantes (Euripides, directed by André Wilms 2005) unfold among fragments of polychrome pillars, the city of The Birds (Aristophanes, directed by Alfredo Arias, 2010) is transposed into a setting that is recognisable to the Comédie-Française audience: Place Colette. As for the new Heracles (Euripides’ Herakles, directed by Christophe Perton, 2010), he takes the form of a trader. Due to its ambivalent character, simultaneously archaic and modern, Greek theatre promises to offer directors and audiences material for reflection and innovation for a long time to come.

• Visual: Electra by Alfred Poizat, after Sophocle, 1907 – photo. Boyer, coll. CF

Translation: Marie Delcourt-Curvers
Scenic version: Bart Van den Eynde et Ivo van Hove
Directed by: Ivo van Hove
Scenography and lights: Jan Versweyveld
Costumes: An D’Huys
Original music and sound concept: Eric Sleichim
Choreographic work: Wim Vandekeybus
Dramaturgy: Bart Van den Eynde
Assistant stage manager: Laurent Delvert
Assistant scenography: Roel Van Berckelaer
Assistant costumes: Sylvie Lombart
Assistant lights: François Thouret
Assistant sound: Pierre Routin
Assistant choreographic work: Laura Aris

And
Trio Xenakis : Adélaïde Ferrière, Emmanuel Jacquet, Rodolphe Théry
Othman Louati
Romain Maisonnasse
Benoît Maurin
percussion (alternately)