Iphigenia at Aulis

London, National Theatre
Lyttelton Theatre
June 12 - September 7

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    The National Theatre may be hoping that the enduring esteem of their recent production of Euripides’ Medea will bring patrons to Iphigenia at Aulis. It is a serious work of classical Greek theatre in its own right though, and this is an impressive and involving production. It may lack an actor of Fiona Shaw’s power and presence and the play alone certainly lacks a central character of the same stature, but Iphigenia at Aulis shares a sense of the human and a social drama at stake. It is also cognisant of the monumental significance of every act of god or man, set as it is at the outset of the Trojan War; a time when the will of the gods weighed heavy on human affairs.
    The story deals with the personal and political crises which ensue when the goddess Artemis demands the sacrifice of Iphigenia, eldest daughter of Agamemnon, in exchange for fair winds which will carry his troops across the sea to Troy. Under the pretext that she is to be married to Achilles, Agamemnon has written to his wife Clytemnestra requesting that she bring the girl to Aulis, where the fleet is stranded and the army is restless. As the play opens, Agamemnon has decided to retract his request in the hopes of sparing his daughter. But the tide of fate sweeps him along. The message is intercepted by his angry brother Menelaus (whose wife Helen has been brought to Troy by Paris, precipitating the conflict in the first place). He threatens to reveal Agamemnon’s cowardice unless he proceeds with the original plan. The family eventually arrives expecting an event of quite a different timbre from that which now must take place.
    It is interesting that the Abbey’s production of Euripides’ play is running at the same time that Neil LaBute’s contemporary rewriting of it is part of the complication entitled Bash at the Gate. LaBute drained the tale of its mythic qualities by setting it in a mundane environment where the consequences of the characters’ actions were made to seem ironically futile. A different set of ironies underlie the more socially meaningful events in question here, ones which would have been familiar to a Greek audience from the myths upon which the play was based. The Trojan war would be a victory for their armies, but its costs in the lives of heroes would be felt even after the conflict itself was concluded. The characters featured here would eventually meet gruesome fates at the hands of their families in the name of less noble causes than the fate of the motherland. The resolution of the play is therefore both triumph and tragedy. Despite a characteristic deus ex machina, there is a sense of ambiguous emotions and uncertain destinies which suggests only cold comfort in its outcome. Artemis is appeased, but Iphigenia is gone, and Agamemnon leaves his people for ten years of war from which he will only return to his own murder by Clytemnestra’s lover.
    One of the difficulties of staging this kind of play is that the emotions involved are often so extreme and their expression so vehement that contemporary audiences don’t know what to make of it. There were one or two moments of inappropriate laughter during the show attended by this reviewer, mostly when the character of Achilles (portrayed by Justin Salinger) was on stage. He is played with a stiffness and sincerity necessary under the circumstances, but which somehow seems comic (or at least tongue-in-cheek) in a way which threatens to unseat the delicate balance of the play on the whole. These characters are writ large, and though there are understandable human dramas afoot, sometimes the notions of self, honour, and duty central to them can be hard to connect with on this level, especially when ancient and alien history is in question.
    Nonetheless this is a gripping production, beautifully designed by Francis O’Connor and superbly lit by Peter Mumford. In an attempt to emphasise the universality of the themes and issues, the production has been set during the Second World War. This gives the audience identifiable iconographical reference points which supplant the original setting. This works, and with sneaky references to fascism, the play also questions the morality of military conflict on the whole. Yet the text refuses to allow villainy to become a matter of black and white. All of the characters’ actions are shown in the context of the machinations of the gods. Whether literal or not, these larger forces are shown to affect the decisions of ordinary human beings to an extent which makes events seem beyond their control. Thus it is their responses which become all important, and, by turn, the consequences of those responses for both themselves and their society. Agamemnon in particular is central to this theme, alternating between decency and callousness depending on the situation.
    The play gradually builds to a powerful climax where a range of complex character transitions come to fruition with Iphigenia’s acceptance of her destiny. Throughout the play a low-key but effective music score by Laura Forrest-Hay has been gnawing away at your nerves, and it rises to a crescendo as the sacrifice occurs off stage. Again we see evidence of the complexity of the text in the mixed emotions on display. As Clytemnestra screams, the wind howls and the chorus break off their salute to the glory of Greece with uncertainty. A ‘happy’ resolution follows which only signals the start of the war: is this all to the good?
    The actors generally manage to hit the right tone, certainly at the more important moments, with Chris McHallem making a suitably intense Agamemnon and Kate Duchene an imperious Clytemnestra. Iphigenia is portrayed by Pauline Hutton with a reasonable balance of girlishness and maturity. Frank Laverty makes a strong impression as Menelaus (and shares one of the best scenes in the production in his confrontation with McHallem). Support is provided by Fergal McElherron and Justin Salinger, and also by a chorus including Gina Moxley and Stella Feehily.