Volume 24, Number 12 · July 14, 1977
Chez Atreus
By Bernard Knox
Agamemnon
by Aeschylus, directed by Andrei Serban. at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, New York
A great deal of enthusiasm goes into the production of Greek tragedies for the modern stage, both academic and professional; unfortunately the same enthusiasm is rarely in evidence on the house side of the footlights. Playgoers watching a Greek tragedy usually manage to refrain from looking too often at their wristwatches but the expression on their faces is one of self-congratulation at the steady accumulation of cultural Brownie points. They greet the barely intelligible chanting of the chorus and its inert choreography with simulated rapture and affect a connoisseur's taste for rhetoric as the long descriptive speeches roll on uninterrupted; only their applause for the end of the proceedings is heartfelt. Most productions of Greek tragedy, though I should be the last person to say so, are a crashing bore.
Review, 3866 words
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