Production

Director's NoteOrestes is a play about the tragedy of a country's youth caught up in the confusing web of a society in decay. The noted historian Charles Mee Jr. has based his Orestes on the play by Euripides but has also taken some liberties The world of Mee's Orestes is the world of the Persian Gulf War, of William Kennedy Smith, of Robert Chambers and of Anita Hill. It is a world in which George Bush throws up on the lap of Japan. It is an arena that embraces the nightmare that is modem life in America - Gore Vidal has another name fur America - ''Amnesia.'' The play unblinkingly observes the malfunction of a society and the huge price of the denial of that malfunction. Orestes is a tragicomedy It addrresses big issues with a sense of humor and pathos, embracing the extreme contradictions inherent in our daily lives. The story follows Euripides' version of the aftermath of Orestes' matricide. The ensuing madness and revenge makes up the fabric of our production. The story unfolds within the context of a modem America after some unnamed disaster. It is as if a make-shift hospital were hastily set up on the White House lawn. Generals stroll on and off and the war wounded endure their fates. Electra, Orestes and family and friends lay out their ancient dramao n this hyper-realist landscape. The collision of this ancient Greek story with various incidents from our time resembles an America gone haywire, where the human spirit exists in crisis. A world in which the values and myths are dysfunctional. A world in search of new mythologies. Our world.