ELECTRA/ORESTES

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. ELECTRA/ORESTES 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.