Patrick Comerford
I am staying in Oxford tonight in advance of a medical procedure early tomorrow. But it looks as though I am going to miss the Carabosse Theatre Company’s production of Electra Unbound, which opens in the Greek Church Hall or Swinfen Harris Hall in Stony Stratford tomorrow (11 July 2025) and continues for five nights until next Tuesday (15 July).
This presentation continues the Carabosse Theatre exploration of the electrifying scope of ancient Greek theatre, and is their original adaptation of plays by Euripides, Sophocles and Aeschylus.
This new interpretation of the ancient story is written by Tim Dalgleish and Sally Luff of Carabosse, and features original music by the acclaimed songwriter Mark Denman. The same team previously interpreted Medea at the same venue.
They promise that this is a bold, immersive reimagining of the classic Greek tragedy, breaking theatrical boundaries to deliver an unforgettable experience, with their audiences invited into a world where vengeance and grief collide with electrifying intensity.
This new production breathes new life into an ancient tale, creating a powerful and emotionally charged theatrical journey into a world of raw emotion.
Electra Unbound is a classical story of a family torn by betrayal and bound by vengeance. It is the haunting and harrowing story of Electra, tormented by the brutal murder of her father, Agamemnon, at the hands of her mother, Clytemnestra, and her mother’s lover, Aegisthus.
Trapped in grief and sorrow, longing for justice, Electra clings desperately to hope for the return of her brother, Orestes. When he finally arrives – in disguise – they unite to confront the past, exact their revenge and reclaim their legacy and their destiny.
Many of the roles in Electra Unbound are double cast, giving the Carabosse actors the chance to bring something fresh and unique to each performance, so that no two shows are the same. The staging dissolves the line between stage and audience, and this adaptation reinvents classical theatre for a modern audience.
John Burgess has described Electra as being, along with The Cherry Orchard, ‘perhaps the most formally perfect play ever written’. Others have described Electra as ‘a female Hamlet’.
A West End production of Elektra by Sophocles at the Duke of York’s theatre earlier this year was the first major revival in over a decade of Sophocles’ electrifying and timeless tragedy. It was is a new translation by the Canadian poet and classicist Anne Carson and drew much attention because Elektra was played by Brie Larson, known for her roles in Captain Marvel, Room and Lessons in Chemistry, and because it was directed by Daniel Fish, whose production of Oklahoma! won a 2019 Tony for Best Revival of a Musical and was a West End hit.
Elektra (Electra, Ἠλέκτρα) is one of the most enduring figures in classical tragedy. She is the leading character in both Electra by Sophocles and Electra by Euripides, and a vengeful figure in The Libation Bearers, the second play of the Oresteia trilogy by Aeschylus. She is also the central figure in plays by Alfieri, Voltaire, Hofmannsthal and Eugene O’Neill.
In psychology, she gives her name to the Electra complex, analogous to a boy’s experience in the Oedipus complex, although the idea of the Electra complex is not widely used by mental health professionals today.
Elektra remains a powerful figure in Greek culture today. Aristotelous Square is the main square in the heart of Thessaloniki, and like the White Tower it is virtually synonymous with the city itself. It is a venue for many cultural and political events, and is lined with hotels, cafés and bars.
The two quarter-circle sides of the square are occupied by two culturally important and imposing buildings: the Electra Palace Hotel, where I stayed once while I was travelling to and from Mount Athos, and the Olympion Theatre cinema, the venue of the annual Thessaloniki International Film Festival. There are also Electra Hotels in Athens, Rhodes and Kefalonia.
Walking around the harbour of Rethymnon, I sometimes notice a boat named Elektra. It brings to mind both the plays by Sophocles and Euripides and the score Mikis Theodorakis wrote for the film Electra (1962). That film, starring Irene Papas, is based on the play by Euripides, and was the first in a Greek tragedy trilogy by Michael Cacoyannis, followed by The Trojan Women (1971) and Iphigenia (1977).
In his music, Theodorakis expressed his political values and fused his idealism and his commitment to freedom. His scores for Zorba and Electra show how he caught Greek cultural imaginations, combining Greek traditional music and classical composition, high art and popular culture.
• Electra Unbound is at the Swinfen Harris Hall, London Road, Stony Stratford, from 11 to 15 July 2025. Tickets are available at Ticket Source. For more information about the production and the Carabosse Theatre Company, visit their website HERE.
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