The Ancient Greeks knew all about terrible families. They thought nothing of offering their audiences blood-soaked revenges of dynastic dysfunction involving incest, betrayal and sexual deviancy. But that is simply to speak of the sensational qualities of the plays. When you go to see an Aeschylus or Sophocles drama you expect to leave uncontrollably tear-stung and winded by the weight of tragedy. But Simon Stone’s new production of The Oresteia at the Bridge fails to measure up to its classical forebears in its inability to arouse emotion. It presents a heightened soap opera version of modern relationships, with brawls and infidelities aplenty, yet remains strangely empty of pathos.
It helps to have some familiarity with The Oresteia, even if the subtitle ‘After Aeschylus & Others’ seems to be tagged on to this production for no other purpose than to legitimise Stone’s wild departure. In the original play, Agamemnon is killed by his wife Clytemnestra for sacrificing their daughter Iphigenia so that the gods will provide winds for his safe passage home to Troy. In response, their children Orestes and Electra band together and commit matricide.
Stone keeps the contours of Aeschylus’ family relationships, yet brings the action into recent history, with events taking place from 2016 to 2026, against the backdrop of Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine-Russia war. The clan’s patriarch is Christopher, who runs his own technology company, and is married to best-selling American author Montgomery. From the start, they are at loggerheads with their two children over arrangements for a 21st birthday party. Their son Augie is a brooding adolescent wracked with mental health problems, and their daughter Alice has an inferiority complex about being the less captivating identical twin. Mysteriously absent from the gathering is Isobel, a bright Cambridge student with a Twitter account which she readily broadcasts injustices from – even if the news happens to be that her father has been supplying bombs to fuel Russian warfare. They reside in a glass box of a house designed by Lizzie Clachan. Cold and suburban, it revolves between scenes, alternately concealing and revealing secrets.
Stone writes sporadically, with a sort of chaotic, febrile passion. The dialogue jumps from one subject to another and is delivered at a swift pace. This isn’t aided by the directorial decision to have overlapping speech, meaning key sections of the plot are muffled or simply lost in delivery. There is also an unusual fondness, where the actors are concerned, to mistake volume for emotional pitch. Sections of the play are delivered loudly, but are free of the fresh heat of anger, and vulgarities are a frequent substitute for wit.
The play’s most significant flaw, however, is Stone’s resistance to imbuing these characters with any real psychological depth. They are like dolls tormented at whim by boisterous young girls, brought out of the toy box only to be violently decapitated and dismembered. As such, the audience never really care what happens to them. They watch on out of curiosity but with the emotional inurement of seeing something distanced on a TV screen, negating the shocking and visceral physical immediacy of performance in a theatre auditorium.
The company of actors do their best to bring together this thinly sketched play, building authentically lived-in relationships. David Morrissey’s Christopher is a weary CEO, emotionally distanced from his family, and irritatingly passive to the events around him. Meanwhile, Mary-Louise Parker’s Montgomery is a hot-headed housewife, energised by her paranoia and who willingly slips into her role as a villainess, albeit of the haphazard variety (she buys her murder accessories on the dark web). The two siblings, due to the writing, are not able to transcend their generic moulds: Rosie Sheehy’s Alice is a bratty ranter with Made-in-Chelsea-esque airs, while Tom Glynn-Carney is little more than a drug-addled delinquent with murderous impulses. In their father and son scenes, John Macmillan and Archie Madekwe make for an entertaining duo, but, in an error of casting, there doesn’t seem enough of an age gap between them to make their relationship actually plausible.
If you aren’t seduced by the breakneck speed of events, violent sensationalism, and sweary jokes, then you might notice that Stone’s The Oresteia offers only transitory thrills. No matter how hard you may try to emotionally engage with the material, it is too sprawling and messy a drama to rest itself close to the heart. I imagine most of the audience would have been better off watching Eastenders; that might have provided a greater cause to be tricked into tears.
Written & Directed by Simon Stone
After Aeschylus & Others
Cast includes: Mary-Louise Parker, David Morrissey, Tom Glynn-Carney, Rosie Sheehy, Lloyd Hutchinson, John Macmillan, Archie Madekwe, Alyth Ross, Rakhee Thakrar.
Until: Saturday 21st February 2026
Running Time: 3 hours and 35 minutes
Review by Olivia Hurton