Posts Tagged ‘Aeschylus’
Hip Shot: ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzie …’
Dizzy Miss Lizzie’s Roadside Revue: The Oresteia
The Baldacchino at Fort Fringe
Remaining Performances:
Thursday, July 24 @ 6:30 PM
Friday, July 25 @ 7:00 PM
Saturday, July 26 @ 2:00 PM
They say: “If the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus had gone on tour with Led Zeppelin, Woody Guthrie and a carnie troup, this is what he would have written. A tale of blood, guts and vengeance, Aeschylus’s Oresteia, re-charged. Rowdy, raucous, loud and literate: Dizzy Miss Lizzie’s Roadside Revue presents The Oresteia.”
Trey’s take: Pretty much as advertised: Mostly raucous, intermittently musical, almost always fun. (And I’m on record as believing that brand-new Oresteia adaptations aren’t strictly necessary, so from me, “fun” is saying something.)
I had my doubts, too: Could the Revue crew really get through all three of the House of Atreus plays in the advertised 70 minutes? Turns out I’d underestimated the summarizing power of, for instance, the tart shorthand with which a vengeful Elektra, plotting the death of her marricide mother Clytaemnestra, sums up her thoughts about the long-banished brother she hopes will return to deliver the vengeful blow: “I hope he’s not a pussy.”
Also efficient: The stained-glass bluegrass choral number in which Elektra and her fundamentalist libation bearers pray piously for “the death of that vile whore.”
