National Theatre

Buy Tickets

Oresteia: 2

by Aeschylus (458BC)

1: The Home Guard
2: The Daughters of Darkness
in a new version by Ted Hughes (1998)

Aeschylus was the first great Western playwright and The Oresteia his masterpiece. This new adaptation by Ted Hughes was one of the last projects he completed before his untimely death last year. It is written in his most personal, powerfully driven and pared-down style, speaking directly to contemporary audiences, yet rising to the tragic vision of the original.

A man is faced with the choice of killing his daughter or losing a war. Driven by personal ambition, he brutally murders his child and, in doing so, unleashes a chain of vengeance that rips through his family and community.

When he returns home victorious, his wife murders him, and their son in turn, murders her. Social order collapses, tyranny triumphs and the ‘daughters of darkness' burst out of the bowels of the earth demanding that the son's crime be avenged.

Finally the son is put on trial and in the tense and highly charged atmosphere of the courtroom, the story reaches its climax. But can the court stop further bloodshed and break the cycle of vengeance?

Katie Mitchell's previous work includes Rutherford and Son and The Machine Wreckers at the National, The Phoenician Women (RSC) and the Maids (Young Vic).

Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes

Cottesloe Theatre

• Performance dates & Prices
• Production images
• Press reviews
• Talkback

What is RSS?