Girl on an Altar - Kiln

I'm almost certain we will be getting this in Dublin in the autumn as it's an Abbey Theatre co-production. I always enjoy Marina Carr's Greek inspired plays but keep wondering if she hasn't completely mined this seam at this stage. The Abbey staged a sensational revival of her early play Portia Coughlan with Denise Gough this year so I would prefer her to go back to her own original stories.

Well this one was rough going. As others have stated here: there is far too much narration and not enough dramatic action and while Mr Walmsley is very hot I often felt that he was taking off his t-shirt just to engage the audience who might otherwise be bored out of their minds. Ms Carr's plays tend to get too verbose but this one much more than others. Annabelle Comyn's direction seems to be- when in doubt: shout. Only Tom Piper's design appealed to me, but it could be utilized for any number of classic plays in need of a contemporary twist. I

I was always going to like this because I love ancient Greek drama but I did really enjoy this.

It’s the kind of thing you either click into the rhythms of it or you don’t. It is slow, and there’s so much symbolism and subtext in the use of clothing, shoes, feet, materials, surfaces, and other props. Probably the most stunning lighting I’ve ever seen on stage.

The script is the weak element to the exceptional acting and design. What makes the Ancient Greek plays so powerful is the sense that an uncontrollable and unstoppable evil force has been unleashed by the original act (the murder of Iphigenia) that drives the action relentlessly on and on till it consumes everything in its wake until catharsis is achieved via more death. The decision to slow the action and put the focus on the domestic psychology how Clytemnestra and Agamemnon’s relationship decays in the years after the war, removed that sense. It reminded me a bit of “Middle”. And also the opposite of “Age of Rage” which hopscotches from dead girl to dead girl with alarming alacrity.

Some changes are hard to understand.

Having said that, the speech about dead girls, the conspiracy amongst men to kill girls, was one of the most affecting thing I’ve seen in theatre for a long time.

Anyhow, I loved this version of the Agamemnon-Clytemnestra story.

Some spoilers follow. . .

Thoughts of Angus Wright's calm political Agamemnon, in Orestaia at the Almeida, for example, were swept away by David Walmsley's magnificently masculine, active and utterly callous Agamemnon, who very much felt like a character who leapt out of the ultraviolent action-packed chest-puffing sword-hacking world of Zack Snyder's movie, "300." Indeed, Walmsley is entirely reminiscent of Gerard Butler's Leonidas, from that movie, but without the moral backbone. Though Walmsley's Agamemnon disguises his soullessness with romantic talk and political excuses, ultimately he is a Putinesque figure: like Peter the Great, he wants what he wants, and is willing to take it, even if that means hacking up his own daughter, in whose death Walmsley brilliantly suggests he takes a perverse pride and pleasure, even as he talks a moral game and tries to put the blame on others for his vaingloriousness.

For these reasons, the play had massive contemporary resonance for me.

Eileen Walsh was equally brilliant as Clytemnestra, her indignant love for her daughter haunting Walmsley's moral mask of a disguise like an inevitable knife through the heart. It is notable that in this version, she, not Aegisthus, wields the axe!

Sometimes I hate monologues and voiceover, and sometimes I love it. I tend to hate it when it's just an excuse for not dramatising things, a failure to show not tell. But that isn't how I experienced the monologues in this play. I found them to be the piercing insights into characters' motivations that you otherwise would be denied, revealing the hidden truths behind the lies we tell to justify acts of extreme violence.

I found this play very effective.

4 and a half stars from me.

PS: Incidentally, I see David Walmsley has a small role in the Apple TV thriller as a villain going up against Gary Oldman's "Slow Horses" spy agency. I'd really like to see that on regular TV, or Sky, if and when it finishes its first run on Apple TV. Speaking as an Android user! 😂