Review of Electra at Old Vic

We went on a college trip to watch a production of Electra. Unfortunately, i couldn't attend this trip however with my peers feedback i still managed to gathered a lot about the production and how it they portrayed it. The seating of the theatre was set up similarly to how they would have been built in ancient greek times. The theatre was set like and old amphitheatre. This was affective as it automatically gave an audience a mindset like they were taken back in time, to the time of greek theatre.

The staging has sand floor which represented the natural environment from Greece. The set also had rocks on which captured that period in Greece, it also highlights Greeks setting which is predominately rocks. The lighting was imitating natural light and they used 360 degrees lighting so it was bright and no shadows were created. 

If shadows were created it could have set a difference ambience and portray emotions which may not have been wanted as it wouldn't be realistic. Also, the theatre was created to be similar to what it would have been like watching it in Greece in the past, and they wouldn't of had the equipment like lights to create shadows so they wanted to make it as natural as possible. Furthermore, there was a tree and a water pump as props for the set. The tree helped visually with creating levels on stage making the set more appealing from an audiences perspective.

Electra's costume was plain and ragged looking. She had a 'homeless' look about her and the costume didn't fit her properly. This portrayed that she was poor and didn't have the money to buy fresh new clothes, she looked dirty and run down. The actress playing Electra i thought was cast as too old for the role as this confused the audience slightly as she was old enough to be Orestes' mother.

The chorus in Electra was kept in the traditional form of Greek theatre. The chorus consisted of 10-15 males as women wouldn't have performed in those days. The chorus wore layered dark clothing which didn't detract away from the main characters. I thought it was disappointing that the chorus didn't sing or dance at all; however is is a drama piece and not a musical, so this was expected.

Electra cried over mums death which confused the audience as Electra hates her mother, however it showed that even though she hated her mother, she was still family and its sad to see her die. This allowed the audience to have a further understanding of electra's personality as she comes across more sincere than i would expected.

In those days if the father was killed its the sons job to seek revenge, i had a greater understanding of this by the performance. This explained why Electra put Orestes into hiding, so she could get him to then seek revenge. In the performance it didn't show the murder which is what they would have done in ancient greek times. This made it slightly boring as it intrigued me into how they would have portrayed that. However, it was still effective when the actors came out with bloody hands. On the other hand, the sound needed to be maximised when the murder took place, the sound was too plain for someone to die.