Orestes at Dream Theatre

Orestes is a descent into hell, not a burning inferno, but a honeycomb of broken lives. Electra is searching for her slaughtered brother, and so great is her love that she will journey to Hades for him. She is told, unendingly, by characters who hate her for killing her mother, that her soul is full of violence. But what drives the play is her love for her brother, and her brother's love for her.

Anna Weiler is spectacular as Electra, determined, vulnerable, her every nerve stripped bare. Jeremy Menekseoglu brings back 2 of his roles from prior plays - Orestes and his father Agamemnon. It was good to see them again. They felt like old friends, even though Agamemnon himself is a righteous scoundrel. Cassandra arrives in the form of Alicia Reese, who plays her quite madly and gaily in her way - I thought she looked like the one person who was almost always having a ball on stage. Theresa Neef is regal and a bit nasty as Persephone, the princess who always winters in hell.

Bil Gaines and Giau Truong zestfully reprise their roles as Mermerus and Pheres, the murdered children of Medea, flashing between playfulness, rage, and fear. Rachel Martindale plays the empathetic Pandora, mother of all sorrows with a stage-grabbing air of naturalness, a sort of earth-mother quality. Annelise Lawson is the gossipy tavern keeper, with a cockney sort of accent, who starts us on our journey, and who entertained us with her lovely voice at intermission, singing "My Heart Belongs To Daddy" which perhaps was chosen because of this Cole Porter verse:

I used to fall
In love with all
Those boys who maul
Refind ladies.
But now I tell
Each young gazelle
To go to hell...
I mean, hades.

Dream Theatre relentlessly takes on the fourth wall in this play. The characters of the myths are aware that this night they have an audience - that Electra has an audience on this journey - and the characters wonder aloud what motivates the audience - is it sadism? is it empathy? It's a spookily intimate question, which you don't answer aloud, but which I suppose you do ask yourself.

I'd been to an unadorned reading of the play, some time ago, but tonight the play surprised me.

Months ago I had heard
every single word
but somehow I couldn't tell
that it would play so well
this journey into hell
this sorrowful land down under
flashing and roaring thunder
leaving me gasping in wonder.