As an actor preparing for the role of Electra, what aspects of her character would you emphasise in creating the

final performance? In your answer you should refer to three key scenes in which the character appears.
Written towards the end of his careers, somewhere around 405BC, Electra is a Greek tragedy written by Sophocles. Sophocles was born in a village around a mile from Argos and is credited with adding a third actor to performances, abolishing the trilogic form meaning that one plot was no longer told across three plays, and other authorities also credit him with the invention of scene-painting. The play is based on, as convention of Greek tragedy, ancient mythology. This reliance on telling story through mythology was due to anything else being too relevant to the time, it would have seemed too controversial to set something in the modern day and so they chose not to. Set in the city of Argos, it follows Electra, and her vengeance shared with her brother Orestes toward their mother Clytemnestra and step father Aegisthus for the murder of their father Agamemnon. Original performances would have been performed in large theatrical arenas with capacities of around 16,000 people in an open-air stage. It would be an interesting and modern interpretation however, given the intimate nature of the text, to perform it in a small studio space with a capacity of no more than 300. I would use end on staging for this piece. Played out across one single act, the play starts with Orestes arriving with the Tutor who protected Orestes under Electras order with a plan to announce that Orestes has died in a chariot accident. They tell of how two men will arrive shortly to deliver an urn with the remains. In keeping with the conventions of the time, this small section of just two pages is a prologue to the action. Orestes arrives to Electra to deliver the urn with his ashes in, neither recognise each other and he hands it to her as she laments about the death of Orestes. He realises the horror of the situation and reveals the truth to Electra and the Tutor returns, encouraging of their plan to slay their mother and stepfather. Once Clytemnestra is dead, they cover a sheet over her so to reveal her identity to Aegisthus. They escort him off stage to the same location that Agamemnon was killed. It was considered in Ancient Greece to be an offence to the gods to portray murder and death in action on the stage and so these parts of the action are always instead delivered in the form of messenger speech instead. A major theme within the play is the effect of revenge on its perpetrator. At the plays start we see Electra adhere to the principles of justice yet as it progresses, revenge seems to take over and she becomes increasingly more irrational creating the argument of whether the victory that Electra has over her mother at the end is a triumph of justice or in fact the downfall of Electra. This desire for vengeance is something that makes up an integral aspect of her character that should be explored and emphasised in the final performance. I believe Electras super-objective across the entire play to be to punish those that have done her wrong. She wants to kill the people that have killed her father

A2 Drama & Theatre Studies (Electra) Reece Fitzgerald

Subject Tutor: Rebecca Lewis-Verebelyi Date Due: 22nd October 13

whom she has held so dear and is devoted to this idea of dishonour that she believes her father has suffered at the hands of Clytemnestra and her bed mate. You need to in performance communicate the fact that Electra is very alone at points, her father Agamemnon is dead, her sister Iphigenia is dead, Chrysothemis appears to have accepted her mother and new father and she believes Orestes to be dead. You could argue that this loneliness begins to fuel the hatred that she has toward her mother as Clytemnestras actions appear to have taken three people away from Electra. Orestes has left in order to return and slay the mother, Chrysothemis has accepted the situation whilst her dear father Agamemnon is now dead. On page six, we see Electra bemoan her situation to the audience as she tries to enlist the sympathy of the audience, as she says I am the only one to mourn poor father, who died such a terrible death, one deserving of pity. From the outset of the play we are seeing how Electra feels that her father has been done a dishonour and that he should be pitied. She tells us that she is the only one mourning him and this demonstrates the theme of loneliness that is part of the play. This speech also starts to show us the theme of the degrading effects of dishonour as Electra feels that we ought to mourn her fathers death and have pity upon it as she feels that he has been dishonoured. In the conventions of Greek theatre, all of the actors would have worn masks which means that you cannot use facial expression to deliver the emotions of the character and you need to start acting through the mask with the use of the body. It is due to the use of mask that body language and physicality is so important and the position that your head is facing is equally important. For this scene, Electra may face slightly upward toward the audience to show who the speech is facing toward and on key lines such as come, help me avenge the murder of my father she may move her face towards different, individual audience members. On the lines help me Hades and Persephone, Hermes of Hell and Lady Curse the actor playing Electra could swing their arms around to show how she wants to rise them and get them to help her. On pages 21-25 we see the key argument between Electra and Chrysothemis. This is the first real time that we see the two points of views of the characters put together and provides a good opportunity to compare them within the action. Electras desire for revenge is clear in this speech and she has the strong opinion that what her father did is not wrong, she keep saying to Clytemnestra about it being reason to kill him. I personally dont find Electras argument convincing in this speech as Clytemnestra makes very valid argument in the statements what right had they to kill my child my child? For his brother Menelaus, then of course. Whereas Electra almost contradicts herself as she talks about it not being Agamemnons fault, yet she continues to say that as he killed it he made some boastful remark. In this argument you need to see the characters in prominent anger with each other but this is very hard with the masks as they cannot look directly at each other on the stage. They should instead just turn their heads slightly in order to allude to the idea of them talking to each other. There needs to be a glamorous

A2 Drama & Theatre Studies (Electra) Reece Fitzgerald

Subject Tutor: Rebecca Lewis-Verebelyi Date Due: 22nd October 13

and sexy element to the portrayal of Clytemnestra, she needs to be the dominant character in the scene I feel as it is her house and she needs to be leading the argument, you can see this in the semi-sarcastic line of If you had always begun so reasonably, it would have been easier for me to listen to you. As I would continue to stage the piece with masks up until the point of the revelation of Orestes, I would not have the performers cross each other on the stage as this can break the tension and remind you of the fact that you are watching a performance.

A2 Drama & Theatre Studies (Electra) Reece Fitzgerald

Subject Tutor: Rebecca Lewis-Verebelyi Date Due: 22nd October 13