THE ORESTEA

The ancient Greek “Orestea” was Mark Weil's last production. Despite his tragic murder in the fall of 2007, the theatre opened its 32nd season as planned and performed the premiere of this work.

Many directors have taken on Aeschylus's tragedy in the last quarter century. The most famous in Russia was the nine-hour production staged by German director Peter Stein in 1994 with celebrated Russian actors in the cast.

Weil's version is no less memorable. This production, unusual in both a creative and a technical sense, combines traditional theatre with contemporary acting styles and multimedia. Video images dynamically and organically interact with live actors on stage. At times it seems as if the screen swallows the live portions whole. Ilkhom, now known as the Theatre of Mark Weil, performs this famous tragedy of people and gods, passions and treason, loyal friendship and low perfidy, love and bloody revenge in a lively, contemporary manner. Spectators are caught up in the action where actors are in modern dress, their speech is brisk, and their emotions are expressed without reservation. On occasion, in fact, their movements betray the laws of physics — they walk on clouds that appear in video projections.

This large-scale production is filled with great acting. Weil gave profound meaning and a powerful energetic surge to every moment of the performance, every word spoken, every movement on stage. As such, even secondary roles have every bit as much impact as the leads.

“The Orestea” combines the mythological events of Aeschylus's play with the realities of the contemporary world in such a way that they resonate clearly in the hearts and minds of contemporary spectators. This is doubly true when one considers that the tragedy played out on stage was echoed in the real-life tragedy on Mark Weil's death at the hand of murderers.