Out with ACT: Elektra

"Ph Lord,"  I thought, "Here she goes again."  I have said for eyars that ACT's productions are hit or miss.  That the hits are freakintabulously awesome and the missed are Oh Dear God In Heaven Would You Stop With the Inaccessible High Art.  I have a similar love/hate relationship with the theater's Artistic Director Carey Perloff.  She has a great eye for amazing shows to bring to the theater, and a destructive bent to put on excruciatingly boring arty works herself.  I am reminded of the Mark Twain quote (at least I think it was Twain) that "Literature is a book that everyone wants to have read but no one wants to read."  Or about like that.  The sentiment holds for Perloff's personal productions.  I feel like she puts this on because she thinks we should see it.  Like it is artistically good for us like a matron forcing us to eat the broccoli.  But here's the thing, you can prepare tasty broccoli.  Just because it is Literature does not mean it cannot also be entertaining.

In their review, the SFist really nailed my consisent sentiments of such shows: "an uninspired museum piece on a contemporary set... But all told, like 2010's gloomy and stilted Phedre, it's once again hard to see past Perloff's desire to educate us, to restage a canonized work for its own, unadulterated sake, to find any new theatrical revelation."

All that aside though, Eleketra was pretty entertaining and not at all soporific. While I am sure that the brevity of the show and the energy drink I shot beforehand may have had something to do with it, the relatively simple story and lack of extensive undulating monologues helped. But what really saved this from being yet another museum piece was the stellar acting from all involved. Rene Augesen always gives a strong performance and I would probably sit and watch her read a grocery list on stage (and feel that I have), but Caroline Lagerfelt really plays the mother with layers of pathos and empathy. I share the SFist's Jay Barmann's appraisal of her performance: "We come away seeing the character not as the evil adulteress of myth, but a woman buffeted by the wills of various men, and in search of redemption."


It's always nice to have Tony Fusco make an appearance in a role no matter how small, and Allegra Rose Edwards brought to life the easily lifeless sister Chrysothemis. I would link to all of these actor's bios on the ACT site but their site isn't set up that way (only pop-up bios).

Olympia Dukakis has been brightly billed as the star of this show as the Greek Chorus, but our performance featured the understudy Omozé Idehenre. Kevin and I have been fortunate enough to experience performances from Omozé before and were lucky to catch her tonight. The star turn would have been fun to see, and even more fun to meet, but I can't imagine even Olympia's star could outshine Omozé Idehenre's performance.

Speaking of understudies, Nick Steen does a nice job with the brother Orestes, but you would also be fortunate to catch the talented understudy Patrick Alparone. Although you may not notice either of their performances as both are so distractingly handsome.