It feels like a proper Greek summer here in the UK. The ground is parched, it hasn’t rained in months, and the massive publicity machine behind Christopher Nolan’s billion-dollar hit The Odyssey – from red-carpet gowns to disapproving academics – is like a Charybdis, swallowing up every other cultural event in its huge mouth. Mere Mortals, San Francisco Ballet’s stunning piece inspired by the story of Pandora, is showing in Edinburgh this month before heading to Sadler’s Wells in September. And Greek tragedy is still packing London’s theatres.
Last week, I caught Simon Stone’s take on Aeschylus’s Oresteia at the Bridge theatre in south London, and it was sold out. Even on a Thursday afternoon, a big crowd turned up for the story of a family tearing each other apart, passing violence down the generations until their whole household collapses into ruin and madness. Part of that is down to the brilliant cast: David Morrissey and Mary-Louise Parker play Christopher and Montie – a modern-day Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, their marital bickering building back and forth until he breaks and she snaps. Their children are left to wrestle with an impossible task: honouring their murdered father while showing respect to their murderous mother.
Part of it is also because Stone has earned his audience when it comes to Greek tragedy. His 2023 version of Phaedra with Janet McTeer at London’s National Theatre blended Euripides, Seneca, and Racine. And his adaptation of Euripides’s Medea, starring Marieke Heebink at the Barbican in 2019, is still one of the best things I’ve ever seen. That modern retelling opened with Medea leaving the asylum where she’s spent the past year, after trying to kill her ex-husband for cheating on her and their children. The tension piled up like bodies as the play moved toward its devastating end. These very different plays asked a similar question: what do women do with their rage when speaking it out gets them nowhere?
The hottest Greek ticket this year, though, has to be Cate Blanchett in the upcoming Electra/Persona by Benedict Andrews. Electra is a fascinating choice, not least because we have three different versions of her story: Sophocles and Euripides each wrote one, and Aeschylus’s Choephoroi covers the same part of the myth. There are plenty of differences between the three, especially since Euripides takes jabs at Aeschylus’s version, mocking a recognition scene where Electra identifies her long-lost brother by a lock of hair and a footprint, both of which (implausibly) match her own.
But the core beats of her story go like this: Agamemnon is killed by his wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus. Clytemnestra feels completely justified because Agamemnon had sacrificed her older daughter ten years earlier. She spent the whole Trojan war waiting for her chance at revenge. But her surviving children – Electra and Orestes – can’t forgive her for killing their father, no matter the reason. Orestes has grown up away from home, biding his time.
Sophocles’s Electra has nowhere to go: she can’t leave home because she’s a young woman, and ancient Greek customs require her to live in her father’s house until she marries. But she can’t marry either, because Aegisthus and Clytemnestra know she hates them, so any husband (or son she might have) would be turned against them. Electra is basically trapped in the home of the people who killed her beloved father, with no hope of release.
This is the role that was being played by ElisabIn Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 psychological drama Persona, Elisabet (played by Liv Ullmann) is a character who breaks down and stops speaking. Alma (Bibi Andersson) is the innocent young nurse caring for her, sharing stories from her own life to fill the silence, until she realizes Elisabet is watching her closely. The film has left critics puzzled, unable to fully understand the strange and tense relationship between the two women.
But Electra has always been a puzzling character, torn by conflicting emotions: love for her father, indifference toward her late sister, hatred for her mother, and a constant, burning anger. One reason these Greek tragedies continue to resonate with audiences is that they give a voice—and dramatic action—to female anger that has been ignored. Medea doesn’t accept being abandoned; she destroys everything her husband values in a single day. Clytemnestra doesn’t accept her daughter’s murder; she seeks revenge. And Electra doesn’t accept her father’s killing, but like Hamlet, she lacks the strength to act alone against her mother. These women are extreme—like many characters in Greek tragedy—but their rage is more powerful because they have been silenced and overlooked. If modern theater audiences are any indication, their days of being silent are over.
Natalie Haynes is the presenter of Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics on Radio 4 and the author of books including Stone Blind and Pandora’s Jar.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of FAQs about the shift in focus from male heroes to women in ancient Greek mythology and history
General Beginner Questions
1 What does Move over Odysseus actually mean in this context
Its a catchy way of saying that the traditional focus on male heroes is shifting Instead historians and authors are now telling the stories of the women who were often in the backgroundtheir wives mothers enemies and goddesses
2 Why is it important to talk about women in ancient Greece if they didnt have many rights
Because they werent just passive victims Even with legal restrictions women ran households managed finances practiced religion and influenced politics behind the scenes Also mythological women like Medea and Antigone were incredibly powerful and complex characters who asked big questions about justice and loyalty
3 Were there any famous female writers or poets in ancient Greece
Yes The most famous is Sappho a lyric poet from the island of Lesbos She was so highly regarded that Plato called her the Tenth Muse There was also Corinna who supposedly beat the male poet Pindar in poetry competitions
4 Is this just about mythology or are we talking about real history
Both Its a dual movement In history were looking at real women like Aspasia and Spartan mothers who were famous for their toughness In mythology were reexamining characters like Circe and Penelope to see them as protagonists of their own stories not just obstacles or prizes for men
Mythology Literature Questions
5 Who are some of the key mythological women I should know about
Start with Circe Medea Penelope and Atalanta Also look at the Amazons a tribe of female warriors
6 How were goddesses like Athena or Hera different from mortal women
Goddesses had power that mortal women didnt Athena was a warrior and strategist Artemis
