REVIEW: The Oresteia at Bridge Theatre until 19 September 2026
‘Pretty special’ ★★★★ ½
Families fall out but love each other. They bear grudges. Parents feel guilty about children and children, as they grow up, resent parents. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Human nature hasn’t changed much in the two and a half millennia since Aeschylus penned his trilogy in which a family takes those feelings to extremes.
Simon Stone’s modern version – effectively a three act play – is one of the most arresting pieces of drama you’re likely to see this year. He starts with a family arguing about a 21st birthday party they’re preparing for in prosperous middle-class Sevenoaks. It ends, three and a half hours later with a lot of blood, severe mental disturbance and a cast so wrought by what they’ve just done that they can barely smile at curtain call.
Lizzie Clachan’s set is one of the cleverest designs I’ve ever seen. It gives us a complete two storey house on the revolve complete with kitchen, sitting room, utility, bedrooms, bathroom, hallway and staircase. Most of the action takes place inside behind glass (all actors mic’d) except when they’re on the doorstep or in the garden. We look in as outsiders and can see characters going about their business in other rooms as the main action takes place in a different space. And, as a device to ensure that it feels totally three dimensional, we are continually and deliberately disconcerted by the frequent rotating and shifts of focus. And that, of course, also allows the presumably very busy, backstage team to adjust furniture and props in the rooms we can’t, at that moment, see.
The quality of acting from the cast of nine plus a handful of understudies in minor roles, is remarkable. All are so powerful that the characters they portray linger long after you leave the theatre. Stand-outs include Mary-Louise Parker as Montie, the Clytemnestra figure who murders her husband (David Morrisey as Christopher – good) because she can’t forgive him for the death of their daughter. Parker finds intensity and complexity in a woman torn apart by grief, anger and passion. And it’s rivetingly painful to watch.
Tom Glynn-Carney is glitteringly good as Augie – the son who has an Oasis poster in his bedroom and plays the guitar rather well – but gradually morphs into a deeply troubled psychotic murderer incarcerated in an institution and haunted by his father. And there’s a magnificent performance from Rosie Sheehy as Alice, loosely representing Electra. She starts as a lippy twenty-one-year-old (hilarious take-off of her father’s accent) and develops into a serious, often deeply distressed, young woman working hard to improve the world. Somehow Sheehy ages before our eyes.
Stone’s script neatly and imaginatively comes up with plausible twentieth century reasons for some of the tensions. Christopher works for his brother, Mel (Lloyd Hutchinson – strong) in a huge international tech firm which is, it emerges, providing ethically questionable equipment to war zones. When the plot requires Augie to disappear, he is sent to, and deeply traumatised by, Afghanistan. Lloyd Hutchinson becomes a Kent police officer, and subtly absorbs some of the quasi-chorus role.
It’s profoundly moving, beautifully staged and often very funny. I have only two minor caveats about this electrifying show.
First, Stone’s dialogue is impressively observed but it sometimes takes naturalism too far. Characters are often very angry and then they shout over each other – as people do. The trouble is that if you try to replicate that in theatre the audience cannot hear what is actually being said.
Second the plotting includes many time shifts, forward and back. Although, these are clearly signalled in surtitles: Ten years later, four years earlier and so on, it isn’t always easy to remember exactly where we are in the chronology.
But it’s still unmissable.
Photography: Johan Persson
The Oresteia
Aeschylus, reworked and directed by Simon Stone
At Bridge Theatre, Southwark
3 July – 19 September 2026
BOX OFFICE https://www.bridgetheatre.co.uk/whats-on/the-oresteia/
Writer and director Simon Stone is joined set designer Lizzie Clachan, lighting designer Nick Schlieper, and casting director Jessica Ronane CDG.
Cast
Mary-Louise Parker
Montie
Mary-Louise Parker
David Morrissey
Christopher
David Morrissey
Tom Glynn-Carney
Augie
Tom Glynn-Carney
Rosie Sheehy
Alice
Rosie Sheehy
Lloyd Hutchinson
Melville
Lloyd Hutchinson
John Macmillan
Jerome
John Macmillan
Archie Madekwe
Lorenzo
Archie Madekwe
Alyth Ross
Jenny
Alyth Ross
Rakhee Thakrar
Chandra
Rakhee Thakrar
Seán Donegan
Understudy Christopher & Melville
Seán Donegan
George Renshaw
Understudy Augie
George Renshaw
Andy Umerah
Understudy Lorenzo & Jerome
Andy Umerah
Emily Waters
Understudy Alice, Chandra & Jenny
Emily Waters
Kirsty Yates
Understudy Montie
Kirsty Yates
Creative Team
writer & director
Simon Stone
after
Aeschylus & Others
producer
Wouter van Ransbeek
set designer
Lizzie Clachan
lighting designer
Nick Schlieper
casting director
Jessica Ronane CDG
sound designer
Peter Rice
costume designer
Emma White
music by
Katrina Rose
production manager
Jim Leaver
associate director
Benedict Crosby
associate lighting designer
Guy Jones
costume supervisor
Anna Josephs
props supervisor
Lily Mollgaard
fight director
Sam Lyon-Behan
