Complexities of Electric Attractions

Before Jerry Springer proved that dysfunctional families could be entertaining on television, ancient playwrights such as Aeschylus ("Oresteia"), Sophocles and Euripides (both writing plays called simply "Electra") turned to a tale about murder, a daughter's questionable devotion to her father, and the consequences of the father's infidelity.

In Los Angeles, two plays modernize the ancient Greek tale and prove that murderous, dysfunctional families continue to fascinate. Glendale's classical repertory theater, A Noise Within mounts and stunningly enthralling 4-hour interpretation of Eugene O'Neill's "Mourning Becomes Electra" which is based on Aeschylus' "Oresteia." At the Mark Taper Forum, local playwright Luis Alfaro re-invents the myth as a chapter in cholo tragedy, infusing sly local humor for an entertaining 90-minutes.

While the myth of Oedipus inspired Sigmund Freud to formulate the Oedipus complex, Carl Gustav Jung used the myth about Electra to name the reverse the Electra complex. Oedipus' murder of his father and subsequent marriage to his mother was an unwitting mistake. Yet Electra doesn't actually commit incest as much as choose her father over her mother.

The tragedies of the Trojan War didn't end with the fall of Troy. If one should beware of Greeks bearing gifts, one should also beware of the consequences of infidelity and murder. According to the myth, Agamemnon asked his wife, Clytemnestra, who is Helen's sister, to send their daughter, Iphegenia, to marry Achilles at Aulis where the Greek ships wait for favorable winds. Instead, Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter to appease the gods who thus grant them winds to take them to Troy.

After being away for a decade, Agamemnon returns with a young enslaved Trojan princess, Cassandra, as his concubine. This combined with her daughter's death have left Clytemnestra bitter toward her husband and she, along with her lover Aegisthus, who was a cousin of Agamemnon. Aegisthus, the product of father and daughter incest, had lost his throne to Agamemnon yet managed to seduce his cousin's wife before the end of the Trojan War. So while Agamemnon was murdered by his wife and lover to avenge, among other things, the death of her daughter, Clytemnestra and Aegisthus were in turn murdered by her son, Orestes, at the urging of her daughter, Electra, to avenge the father's death.

Article Author: Purple Tigress

Former theater critic for the LA Weekly and Los Angeles Times . For the last five years, an editing slave at a dot-com but recently laid off. Currently an under-employed freelance writer and artist.

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