The Arts in New York City

Ok, so I have a few bones to pick with this play and I feel kind of bad about it because everyone else liked it. Firstly, I didn’t really like the space. Unlike BAM, the seat were crunched together to tightly that if the stage were often times being blocked by people’s heads. And since Elektra liked coming the front of the stage, it was hard to see. It was like they tried to cram as many people as possible — most of the seat weren’t even filled, so what’s the point of trying to fill all those seats? Not to mention that incredibly annoying woman that came in late and had the urge to walk around in find her seat. She walked not once around, but twice seeing as how she didn’t find it the first time. Have some consideration people! Secondly, I liked the idea of individual monitors like at the Met Opera House. Now I can see why supertitles stink. In the presence of lighting, the supertitles became hard to see (John will vouch for me on this one). And so I missed some of the script. Which leads me to the actual performance. I believe that this is one of those plays that you need to see and understand the script in order to realize the true artistic nature, and unfortunately I only saw about 3/4 of the words so I suppose I only realized 3/4 of its “poetry”.

I found the beginning a bit slow — I thought Elektra was some crazy woman who loved ranting about revenge and evil mothers (I still do after i saw her do some ritual dance over her dead mother’s body). A lot of monologuing by one person gets old. I wasn’t too sure what to think about the chorus. One the one hand, the fact that they kept running around the stage and making circles around Elektra, I found really annoying and constricting. It was like they were taking up a lot of space, in a claustrophobic sense. If I could liken them to something, they are kind of like the fan girls that follow stars (people that i find very annoying). They are very sensitive to Elektra’s emotional needs, follow her wherever she goes, carries her, hugs her, basically worships her in every way shape or form. On the other hand, they were very in sync and especially that drumming part in the end was very catchy (for some reason I can still remember the tune - it popped into my head this morning while I was eating breakfast).

Comparing it with the previous shows we’ve watched, I would say this was intense. On a scale from 1-10, Figaro was a 7, Hotel was maybe a 4 or 5, and this was definitely 10. Lots of suffering, crying, pain, and more suffering all around. What shocked me the most was when Elektra took off her clothes. I was a bit slow on the uptake because it was dark. I thought she had underwear on until she went up the stairs of the palace gates. I think the correct expression was O.O (wide-eyed shock). That is an actress who is not afraid to play the part. And I must commend her on that - not many people would do what she did.

The tone was always serious, with the exception of a few jokes. I noticed that most of the joking came at the end and I felt that it detracted from the climax when Orestes comes and has a slaughterfest. After all the mood is supposed to be serious and dark and a little vengeful, but there is a small amount of humor, perhaps to lessen the dark mood.

I noticed the color schemes. White on the chorus and Elektra’s sister, green on the mother, black on Orestes and Elektra and gray and black on the Tutor. I thought the chorus represented the voice of logic and reasoning and also shelter for Elektra. Elektra’s sister was cowardice and naivete, a child afraid to take action against the parents. Therefore white is fitting - like the pure innocent child. Black is representative of hate to the point that it corrupts the siblings. We saw how hate drove Elektra into a frenzy - she was hugging an Urn of all things. And we saw how Orestes took no pity on even his own mother. Green I thought, represented cunning and guile (i might have taken that one from Harry Potter). But indeed the mother was very cunning, sleeping with another man and then with him killing her own husband and ousting her daughter out of the castle. Gray, as on the tutor, I viewed as wisdom. Gray is associated with elderly (ie Gandalf the Grey). He has the knowledge to help plan and guide Orestes to his ultimate goal - killing his father’s murderers.

From Elektra I realized two things. One, I’m never going back to City Center again. It seems just like what Professor Drabik said — theatre is becoming a commercial business — they try to pack as many people in one room as possible to make money. Secondly, I realized tragedy really isn’t my thing, seeing as how intense it was in terms of emotion. I’m more into mellow or comedic moods, which is why I liked Hotel and Figaro way better.

Ok I think I’m just ranting now, so i’ll stop. >.<