Last Updated on July 15, 2026
A Greek tragedy for our times
5.0 out of 5.0 starsThe Oresteia is a big play in all senses. It runs for three and a half hours, including two intervals, so it demands a level of commitment from the audience that seems unusual these days, when so many productions are done and dusted within 90 minutes. It is a play that has stood the test of time, written by the Greek playwright Aeschylus in the 5th century BCE. How does a contemporary director bring The Oresteia to the stage? In Australian Director Simon Stone’s hands, audiences can expect a less traditional telling of this long tale, particularly as he takes classic texts and transforms them into contemporary dramas. His plays are renowned – or notorious – for being visceral, no-holds-barred productions. It is impossible to forget the gut punch of his interpretation of Lorca’s Yerma, staged at the Young Vic a decade ago. Once again, in The Oresteia, Stone leaves the audience reeling from the horror show that unfolds over the lengthy play. Despite the running time, The Oresteia galloped along at such an intense pace that the time sped by.
The first third is played at full emotional tilt. Stone encourages his cast to give full vent to a high level of emotional expression; everyone is disturbed, shouting, accusing, and undermining one another. It is also very funny – neurotic and intelligent people with rapid-fire dialogue. But not all is humorous. Eighteen-year-old Augie (Tom Glynn-Carney) is showing prodromal signs of psychosis, while his father, Christopher (David Morrissey), is drowning in alcohol and debt. The family business he runs with his bullying brother Melville (Lloyd Hutchinson) is both morally suspect (they sell military parts) and has caused a rift with his daughter, Isobel (Rosie Sheehy), who refuses to attend her 21st birthday party. Her twin Alice (also played by Rosie Sheehy) is filled with self-loathing and low self-esteem, exacerbated by the awe in which her twin is held by the family, despite the fact that she has become a Peace Alliance activist, condemning the family business on social media.
The darkening clouds build up into an explosive storm in the second and third parts of The Oresteia with an orgy of violence. It feels like Macbeth and Hamlet rolled into one, and yet the ancient Greeks got there first. Stone tells the story in a non-linear way, the action jumping backwards and forwards from 2016 to 2023, including a Covid lockdown. This keeps us on the edge of our seats as pieces of the puzzle are revealed, the final piece kept back until the very end.
As shows like Succession have shown, audiences have an appetite for watching very wealthy families self-destruct. The Middleton family in The Oresteia is OTT and larger-than-life, yet we are able to recognise elements of family life, with its anxieties, alliances, loyalties, and betrayals.
The cast is big too, with some 14 people on stage for the curtain call. Heading up the group is David Morrissey as Christopher and Mary-Louise Parker as Montie. Gone are the ancient Greek names and places. Here is a modern story for our contemporary age. Stone’s Middleton family is living a luxurious life thanks to the family business, Middeltech, that has sold goods to Russia used in the bombings of Syria. Not only are there political schisms within the family, but there are also inherited mental health challenges which become more pronounced as the drama unfolds and the vortex of violence threatens to destroy the entire family.
Followers of Stone’s work will not be surprised to find that The Oresteia is staged in a glass box, as it is almost his calling card. London audiences will have first encountered Stone’s preference for staging his productions in glass boxes with Wild Duck at the Barbican in 2014. Since then, Yerma and Phaedra have also had this arrangement. With the actors contained within the confines of the glass box, it not only sets up a claustrophobic atmosphere in which family dramas play out, it also sets up the audience as voyeurs, which, of course, we are. I wondered whether this form of staging might seem repetitive, but Lizzie Clachan’s set was superb. A large double-volume glass box which revolved between scenes, enabling action to take place in multiple spaces simultaneously, even while the audience could only listen in to one conversation at a time. The Middleton house was full of mid-century furniture, the master bedroom and en-suite looking like they stepped out of a 5-star hotel with no sense of the bloodied scenes that would take place there. There is a clever visual reference to Jacques-Louis David’s painting of French revolutionary leader, Jean-Paul Marat, dead in his bath.
Stone demanded an emotional range from all his characters. David Morrissey was very powerful in the role of the patriarch who began by putting down his wife, a drunk embezzler beset with suicidal thoughts, to a guilt-ridden man seeking redemption in the arms of a UNICEF employee, while pursuing a sober and carb-free life. His wife, Montie (Mary-Louise Parker), was terrific as the American wife living in Sevenoaks who believes the family is a boxing ring where words are used rather than fists. While she begins with amusing streams of consciousness and chiding of her husband, she transforms into a cold-hearted killer. When her daughter dies, she blames her husband and develops an insatiable rage and need for revenge. Stone has written a poignant and moving speech for her character on parents’ responsibilities to protect their children. Augie (Tom Glynn-Carney) gave a frighteningly accurate depiction of a young man who begins as a guitar-strumming, disturbed teenager, to a young man overwhelmed by psychosis and inter-generational trauma.
This is The Oresteia for our times. Not only references to our contemporary wars – Syria, Afghanistan, selling military parts to Russia are all referenced – but teenage mental health, the isolating effects of Covid, the HBO-like polish of the set, and the central role of social media in modern life. While the family seems cursed, it is Mammon that is worshipped here, the forces of ‘rampant capitalism’, and the greed of those whose moral compass has been tossed overboard.
The Oresteia runs at The Bridge Theatre from 3 July – 19 September 2026
The Bridge Theatre, 3 Potters Fields Park, London SE1 2SG
Check out our London Theatre Previews, July – December 2026 – Off West End
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