Oresteia: Parts II and III: Choephori and Eumenides

UCL Department of Greek and Latin present an amateur production of Oresteia: Parts II and III: Choephori and Eumenides

The king of Argos, Agamemnon, has been murdered on his return home from Troy by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. As the wealth and power of the house of Atreus has now passed into their hands, the house itself has become steeped in murder, adultery, human sacrifice and endless intrigue in an ever accelerating course.

Agamemnon’s son Orestes returns from exile to take revenge on his father’s killers and restore himself to the rule of Argos; but the act of killing his mother entangles him in the same cycle of human sacrifice, deception and destruction that has driven the last generations of the house of Atreus. As the cycle takes one more harrowing turn, foreshadowing more blood, more revenge, and more destruction, human sacrifice manifests itself as the objective of the chthonic powers Erinyes. Is there going to be an end?

In devising a closure to the disturbing course of the house of Atreus and its destructive relation to wealth, power and human life, Aeschylus creates nothing less than an aetiological myth for the creation of Athenian civilisation.

Tickets £9, £6 concessions

Pre-Performance Talks

Wednesday 10 February 2010
6.30 pm: Public talk: “The theatrical variety of Choephori and Eumenides”, Professor Oliver Taplin (Venue: Bloomsbury Theatre Auditorium)

Thursday 11 February 2010
6.30 pm: Public talk :“Orestes and the Oresteia”, Professor Pat Easterling (Venue: Bloomsbury Theatre Auditorium)

Both speakers are international Greeks theatre experts.

Large groups should register their interest to attend the talks; please e-mail: e.bakola@ucl.ac.uk.