‘Elektra,’ the fifth-annual outdoor theatrical production at the Getty Villa, opens September 9 in the Villa’s outdoor amphitheater. One of Sophocles’ most elegantly structured and emotionally wrenching works, ‘Elektra’ will feature Annie Purcell in the title role, Olympia Dukakis in the role of the Chorus, Pamela Reed as Clytemnestra and Manoel Felciano as Orestes. Directed by Carey Perloff, artistic director of the American Conservatory Theater (ACT) in San Francisco, the Getty Villa production debuts a new translation by British playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker. The story of ‘Elektra’ carries forward the tragic history of the House of Atreus. Years after the bloody murder of King Agamemnon, his widow, Clytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus, rule the city with an iron hand, while their daughter Elektra prays to the gods that her exiled brother, Orestes, might return to avenge their father’s death. Believed to have been written near the end of Sophocles’ life, ‘Elektra’ embodies the playwright’s most profound portrait of the endurance of the human spirit, brilliantly ablaze with the warring, inner flames of hope and despair. ’Elektra is a play about willful memory and the damage that happens to someone who refuses to forget,’ says Perloff, who grew up in Pacific Palisades and received a B.A. in classics and comparative literature from Stanford University. She is celebrating her 18th season as artistic director of Tony Award-winning ACT in San Francisco, where she is known for directing innovative productions of classics, championing new writing for the theater and creating international collaborations with such artists as Robert Wilson and Tom Stoppard. This year’s Getty performance offers a particularly rich experience for theatergoers, as it simultaneously complements The Art of Ancient Greek Theater (August 26 through January 3), the first exhibition in the United States in over 50 years to focus on the artistic representation of theatrical performance in ancient Greece. The exhibition will be open at the Villa before each evening’s performance of ‘Elektra.’ Performances will be held Thursdays through Saturdays, at 8 p.m., through October 2. For tickets ($42; $38 for students and seniors), call (310) 440-7300 or go online to www.getty.edu. A two-day symposium on the historical context of theatrical performance and its relation to the creation of some of the most vivid art from the ancient world is set for September 24-25 in the Getty Villa Auditorium. On Saturday afternoon, director Carey Perloff and Professor Helene Foley of Columbia University join curator Mary Louise Hart of the J. Paul Getty Museum for a conversation about the process of adapting and directing ‘Elektra’ for the contemporary stage. Advance registration required.
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