Evaluation of Electra - Performance at The Old Vic.

http://www.oldvictheatre.com/whats-on/2014/electra/
accessed on 2/11/14, The Old Vic.

We went on a college trip to watch a production of Electra. The seating of the theatre was set up similarly to how they would have been built in ancient Greek times. The theatre was set up  like and old amphitheatre and the way the staging was set up it gave the illusion that the theatre was outside. This was effective as it gave the audience the impression of being in Greek times.

The staging had a sand floor which represented the natural old dry environment  of Olden day Greece. The set also had rocks on which captured an essence from the olden underdeveloped times. The lighting represented natural light and they used 360 degrees lighting so it was bright and  shadows were created and changed similarly as they do through-out a normal day.The theatre was also created in the way it was to be similar to what it would have been like watching it live 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. There was also a tree and a water pump as props for the set. The tree helped visually with creating levels on stage.
Electra's costume was worn and ragged looking. She had a 'homeless' look about her and the costume didn't fit her properly, it also looked like that was the outfit she had worn most of her life. This portrayed how ill looked after she was and how she was to proud to give into her mother. She looked very dirty and run down. After some discussion of the ages of the characters I realised that even Electra's mother is still relatively young as she is supposedly bearing children so the actress playing Electra ( Kristin Scott Thomas, 54) in my opinion she was cast because she was a famous actress, so they dismissed the fact that she clearly to old to play the part, even though she portrayed the part well, because of her age the mother had to be cast older and then that made the fact that she was still supposedly bearing children very unbelievable.

In Greek times if the father was murdered it was the sons duty to seek revenge, I got a greater understanding of this through the performance. This explained why Electra put Orestes into hiding, so he could seek revenge for his dead father. In the performance they did not show the murder scene which is what they would have done in ancient Greek times. I would been of been interested and intrigued to how they would have portrayed that. However, it was still effective when the actors came out with bloody hands.

Electra climbed onto her mothers dead body in the final moments of the piece and hugged her, this could mean that even though she hated her mother almost her whole life she has never had a mother figure whom she could hug, so this was a moment she could hug her mother and there be no resistance any more.