Sophocles' Electra 2001

The production took place at the Cambridge Arts Theatre on 10-13 October 2001, 2.30 and 7.45pm.

Directed by Jane Montgomery, it featured Marta Zlatic in the title role and Tom Hiddleston as Orestes.

The main creatives held four pre-show discussions (11th Oct 7pm, 12th Oct 2pm and 7pm, 13th Oct 2pm) at the Arts Theatre; there was a post-show discussion with the director and cast on 11th Oct; and there were pre-show workshops on performance with the director and cast-members on 11th-12th Oct at 5.30pm. The accompanying symposium (‘Complex Electra’, 13th-14th October, Peterhouse College) has been published in Didaskalia 5.3 (2002). Pre- and post-production interviews with the director have been published in PVCRS 1 (2007).

"The Chorus moved like figures on a musical jewellery box – stilted, mechanical, hieratical movements, not in unison, but repeating the same moves in any one speech. They sang most of the lines, even when in dialogue with Electra. The effect was slightly eerie; they looked like mechanical dolls. The reversal of conventional placing of the Chorus in the Orchestra – by exiling them to the periphery – meant that the central playing circle became a claustrophobic space, watched, or guarded by, the observing Chorus."

Ruth Hazel, LATE 20th CENTURY RECEPTION OF GREEK DRAMA & POETRY DATABASE