The Furies @ Oxford Playhouse

According to one commentator, “the mere performance of this play terrified grown men into fainting, when the Eumenides appeared on stage. The Ancient Greeks feared the Furies so much that they dared not even say their names”. To explain, Eumenides is a euphemism for Furies, hideous snake-haired monsters who pursued unpun-ished crimin-als, and spread poison and madness across the Earth. It’s also the title of the third part of Aesch-ylus’s Ores-teia tril-ogy.

Student company the Oxford Classical Drama Society is staging The Furies at the Playhouse this week — slightly confusingly, the English title is being used, although performances are in Ancient Greek with English surtitles. But, of course, The Furies grabs you firmly by the throat as a title.

Vengeance, Aeschylus is saying, is simple: kill and be killed. Orestes has murdered his own mother, Clytemnestra. From the next world, she has sent the Furies to wreak appropriate vengeance. But things are changing in Athens: a criminal court has been set up to end this cycle of murder. Orestes is put on trial, and 12 jurors will decide his fate.

The production opens at night with Orestes (Niall Docherty) haunted by the crime he has committed, and the Furies writhing on the floor all around him. Menacing, discordant music (composed by Joseph Currie, and played by an onstage band) adds much atmosphere, along with Abby Clarke’s blood-red, impressionistic set design, and John Evans’s sharply focussed lighting. It’s evident right from the start that director Arabella Currie and her creative team have achieved a highly integrated production.

“Feel the ice cold thrust of the public whips,” snarl the Furies as they taunt Orestes: director Currie has also prepared the English surtitle translation. There’s no attempt to turn the script into colloquial, modern day language, but you get a meaty impression of Aeschylus’s original nonetheless.

The nine Furies, all dressed in black rags, very much play the central role throughout — a lengthy dance with their feet drumming out a funeral march is truly scary. Currie triumphantly resists the temptation to over-egg the pudding here, but the subsequent appearance of Clytemnestra’s ghost (Hannah Marsters) is inevitably somewhat upstaged.

After the interval, Orestes’s trial proceeds, presided over by a suitably regal Athena (Kaiya Stone). For a while she’s unable to keep the Furies under control, but gradually the rule of law prevails. Seen at the dress rehearsal, this well-paced and acted production really grips, and gives you plenty of food for thought.

The Furies
Oxford Playhouse
Until Saturday
01865 305305, oxfordplayhouse.com