By Aurora Bonfitto
Do you, public, feel ready to be the judges of the bloodthirsty action produced by the hands of a woman betrayed by the man she loves? Do you feel ready to deliver a judgment towards Clytemnestra, murderer of Agamemnon, man she loves and to whom she gave children, who disregarded the values of the family to respect the laws of the clan?
It is not Mycenae but a small town near the slopes of the Vesuvius where the tragedy is set; we are not in ancient Greece during the war of Troy, but in Italy, in Campania where the Camorra kills with no pity.
The settings and the epoch are different, but the spirit of the tragedy that Aeschylus wrote in the V century b.C. stays unchanged: Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, the law of the home life opposed to the law of the clan, give birth to a desperate dispute to defend each his/her own point of view, in front of a public that is not a simple spectator as it becomes, without it knowing it, active character of the tragedy.
Dark.
Then on the curtains of the scenes, which are Corinthian columns, images are projected of the struggle among Camorra families: homicides and abductions catapult us in the Camorra’s Campania.
Clytemnestra, played by an intense Cristina Donadio, appears on stage; her gloves and shoes of a vivid red colour did not go unnoticed: red like love and passion, but also like blood.
Red shoes symbolise the love she has given to a man who has put in the first place his role and duties as head of one of the Camorra’s gangs, sacrificing his own flesh: their daughter Iphigenia.
Red shoes that want to show up, more than her feet, her heel; as love is for Clytemnestra her ‘Achilles’ heel’, love that will turn into homicide.
Hands dressed with red gloves, hands stained with blood, her spouse's blood, the same spouse who had stained his own hands with the blood of their daughter. Hands that decide to take revenge against Agamemnon.
Agamemnon (Antonio Buonomo) subsequently appears on stage as a remembrance of Clytemnestra, who tells the court about her life. He sings a Neapolitan love song – maybe homage to the Neapolitan melodrama – with a warm and suave voice. That same song that Agamemnon dedicated to Clytemnestra years ago when they met, words of love steeped in sadness which already foretold the future sorrow.
Agamemnon, barefoot, clashes with his spouse, wearing carmine shoes: Clytemnestra, to gratify her private grudge, will be soon ready to hit her husband’s ‘naked and helpless heel’ to get her revenge.
The third person to come on stage is Cassandra (Benedetta Bottino), sitting with the public and invited to walk down by the screams of a furious Clytemnestra. Also in this case Cassandra is a part of the tale, for she has also been murdered by Clytemnestra’s revenge fury, together with Agamemnon’s son she was carrying in her womb. Two women, two antithesis: the wife abandoned and the lover chosen: Clytemnestra blames Cassandra for deciding to be the new partner of her husband, Cassandra instead feels that she is just a victim of his father’s will and of Fate and does not feel mistress of her own life, only a pawn in a fatalistic plan already defined.
The last character is Aegisthus, lover of Clytemnestra and killer of Agamemnon; he is silent and appears on stage for only a few seconds. He simply executes what Clytemnestra ordered him to do, as she is the brains of the murder and he is just the brawn.
The title of the original work by Aeschylus was changed from ‘Agamemnon’ into ‘I, Clytemnestra. The judgment’; maybe to emphasise that this show is the confession of a woman who does not hide anything to his interlocutor, his audience, which becomes her court. But basically we, the public, are not called in to judge her deeds, only to listen in silence the confession of a woman torn in her soul for the loss of his family values. Whether we are in Greece in the V century b.C. or in our century’s Campania, the message of the tragedy does not change: wisdom comes alone through suffering.
And we, the public-court, keep silent. After all, who are we to deliver a judgment?
Copyright 2008 GIORGIOSTUDIO Ltd – All rights reserved
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