Aeschylus' Oresteia is a key text of European civilization. In this only surviving ancient trilogy of tragedies, the path from terrible suffering to an order of law is shown by the fate of the family of the Atrides.
Agamemnon returns from the Trojan War. He has sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to be able to go to war. His wife, Clytemnestra, avenges their daughter and slays him in the bath. Their son Orestes, driven by his sister and the god Apollo, avenges his father and slays his mother. Orestes is haunted by his mother's vengeful spirits and threatens to become the next victim. Alone, he cannot bear this guilt. Aeschylus finally shows in a great trial the positive power of jointly set law, which protects the individual from arbitrariness and hatred, and that only forgiveness can break the chain of horror. The price of this forgiveness - integrating on the one hand and letting go on the other - is equally high and yet lower than a continuation of the crisis.
In Kurt Steinmann's brilliant new translation of the Oresteia from 2016, the drasticness and beauty of the ancient verses are impressively made visible anew in a sensually precise language. Gustav Rueb takes this new translation as an opportunity to place the question of guilt and justice at the centre of the production in his own version of the "Orestie".
Source of text and further information about this event: https://www.staatstheater-darmstadt.de/spielplan-tickets/stueckinfo/die-orestie/2017-06-23-19-30.html?tx_sfspielplan_pi1%5BfromSchedule%5D=1&tx_sfspielplan_pi1%5BpageId%5D=
