EastLine Theatre
in association with the
Babylon Citizens Council on the Arts
presents the world premiere of
An Oresteia,
or What We Have Seen
by David Bullen after the Atreid plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides Part of EastLine's Theatre for All Free Season November 6-21, 2021 Old Town Hall, Babylon
Part I. Unborn Based on Agamemnon by Aeschylus Part II. Grave Visitors Based on Iphigenia in Aulis by Euripides, Electra by Sophocles, and Libation Bearers by Aeschylus Part III. Against Better Judgement Based on Orestes by Euripides and Eumenides by Aeschylus There will be a ten minute intermission between parts one and two, and a five minute pause before part three. Please be aware this performance includes flashing images and loud noises as well as strong language, depictions of violence, discussion of sexual abuse, and extensive depiction of trauma. Stage blood is utilized.
Phylax / Orestes Paul DeFilippo
Kilissa / Athena Michelle Osojnak
Iphigenia / Daughter / Erinys Logan Clingan
Clytemnestra / Helen / Erinys Julie Fergus
Keryx / Pylades / Apollo Kuan Hao Huang
Aegisthus / Phryx / Erinys Michael Valdes
Agamemnon / Menelaus / Brett Joe DiPietro
Cassandra / Electra / RBG Thea Kraus
Direction Danny Higgins & Nicole Savin Stage Management Matt Rosenberg Costumes Lynn Ciorciari Technical Direction Remi Watts Film & Editing Anthony Noto Poster Design Anna Stacy
EastLine Theatre is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Our programming is made possible through your donations. Donations can be made fee-free via Facebook or with a small fee via BookTix. All donations are tax-deductible.
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The EastLine Theatre Board of Directors is: Danny Higgins, Larry Meneses, Matt Rosenberg, Nicole Savin, Rebecca Vogel, and Steven Prendergast The EastLine Theatre Creative Associates are: Anna Stacy, Aly Kantor, Anthony Noto, Bryan Bowie, David Bullen, Jess Barenzano, Jess Reed, Joe Boccia Jr., John Brautigam, Lynn Ciorciari, Matt Rosenberg, Melanie Lipton, Morgan Moffitt, Nicole Savin, Paul DeFilippo, and Remi Watts. If you're enjoying today's performance and want to hear more from us, sign up for our mailing list!
With thanks to
Elizabeth Mirarchi, the Babylon Citizens Council on the Arts, Michelle Savin & Caitlin Dunham, Morgan Moffitt, Aly Kantor, Nick Savin, Bob Higgins, Rebecca Vogel, Colleen Brady, Sensory Light & Sound, Paul & Lynda Gaug, and First Presbyterian Church of Babylon
Logan Clingan, Paul DeFilippo, Joe DiPietro, Julie Fergus
Kuan Hao Huang, Thea Kraus, Michelle Osojnak, Michael Valdes
Logan Clingan graduated with their BFA in musical theater from Long Island University: Post. Their favorite credits are Pa Ubu in Ubu Roi, Olivia in Twelfth Night,and Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. They would like to thank this amazing cast, Danny, Nicole, and Matt for an amazing time creating this show! Enjoy the performance!
Paul DeFilippo is an actor, director, and playwright from Queens, NY. He is a Creative Associate at EastLine Theatre, and last appeared onstage in their touring summer production of Romeo & Juliet. Earlier this year, he wrote and directed a full-length film, Policy, as part of EastLine’s Muse Anthology. He would like to thank both Kuan and Michelle for helping him avoid the LIRR by driving him home from rehearsal every night.
Joe DiPietro is thrilled to be making his debut with EastLine. Previous credits include: The Crucible, Black Coffee, You Can’t Take it with You, 12 Angry Jurors, Death of a Salesman, The Elephant Man, Hamlet (Polonius) and Taming of the Shrew (Baptista). Joe would like to thank his amazing cast for their hard work and dedication and Danny for his inspiration to go bonkers.
Julie Fergus is thrilled to be returning to the stage with EastLine. She was last seen this past summer in their production of The Truth at Planting Fields Arboretum. She has also performed in their Long Island premieres of Indecent and Hand to God and was Lady Macbeth on their Wantagh stage pre-pandemic. She has a degree in theatre from USC and spends much of her time writing, singing and performing on the west coast, as well as playing with her husband and three kids in Los Angeles.
Kuan Hao Huang, it’s ya Boi Kuan, enjoy.
Thea Kraus is a recent graduate of LIU Post, achieving her BFA with a concentration in Acting during the pandemic. She’d like to thank her family, both chosen and biological, for creating an environment of support and love as she moves through the chapters of her life. She’d like to thank you also, audience member, for lending your eyes, ears, and imagination to the world we will be creating for you.
Michelle Osojnak is thrilled to be in her first in-person EastLine Theatre production. She has acted in musicals, plays, and short films for almost a decade. She’s held roles such as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, Aunt Eller in Oklahoma, Olga in Three Sisters, and Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible. Even though Michelle is currently studying to be a teacher, acting will forever be her first love. Michelle wants to give a special thanks to Paul for introducing her to EastLine Theatre! She wishes to extend another thank you to her family and friends for supporting her in every bloody, vulgar, sexy, and inappropriate production she’s ever acted in, and is grateful to them for getting through another one!
Michael Valdes has been featured in productions such as AMDA’s Edges, AMDA’s Ordinary Days (Warren), AMDA’s Love Me, Love Me Not, and AMDA’s The Butterfly Effect. This fall, he will portray Man 1 in AMDA’s Songs for a New World. Outside of performing, Michael is an activist against antisemitism and is currently an ambassador for Jewish on Campus, one of the largest student-led Jewish organizations in the United States. He holds a BFA in Musical Theatre from AMDA. Michael would like to thank EastLine for this beautiful opportunity to bring back live theatre and his friends, family, and Hot Jews for all their support! Social Media: @michaeltvaldes. Website: michaeltvaldes.com
The House of Atreus – the Myth.
The House of Atreus is the name commonly given to a mythical family most famous for their tendency to kill one another. Atreus was not actually the founder – that honour goes to his grandfather Tantalus. This man, the ruler of a city located somewhere in modern day Turkey, started what became a grim trend: he cooked his son and served him to the gods when they came to dinner. Atreus would do the same two generations later when he cooked his nephews and served them to their father, Atreus’ brother Thyestes, in an act of revenge. By this time, the family had moved to what is now Greece, and Atreus was the ruler of a city (that still exists today) called Argos.
Atreus’ sons, Agamemnon and Menelaus, continued both sides of the family business: ruling cities and killing their own kin. The brothers married twin sisters – Agamemnon marrying Clytemnestra and Menelaus marrying Helen. Menelaus was chosen by Helen out of almost every eligible man in the Greek world, and her stepfather made all of her suitors swear that they would defend the marriage. They probably never expected their oath to be invoked, but years later Helen left Menelaus for a prince of Troy, a city on the other side of the sea (some say she was abducted, others say it was consensual). Menelaus called on all the men who swore to protect the marriage – and as those men all happened to lead cities and armies, an unprecedented coalition of previously warring states massed to make collective war on Troy. Agamemnon was chosen to lead the expedition. But the massive army found it could not set sail and when the priests were consulted they divined that the goddess Artemis would not let them go to war until Agamemnon sacrificed his eldest child, Iphigenia. So, scheming with Menelaus, Agamemnon tricked Iphigenia and her mother Clytemnestra into coming to the camp on the false promise of marrying Iphigenia to the greatest Greek warrior, Achilles. Both women dutifully turned up; Iphigenia was killed; Agamemnon and Menelaus went off to war; and Clytemnestra returned to Argos as its temporary leader, nursing a newfound hatred for her husband.
The war dragged on for a decade. When Agamemnon returned, Clytemnestra quite literally rolled out the red carpet – but just as he had tricked her, she was deceiving him. Once inside their house, Clytemnestra invited Agamemnon to have a bath – and promptly threw a net over him and cut him up with an axe. She was aided by Aegisthus, the final son of Thyestes, Agamemnon’s uncle – Thyestes conceived and raised Aegisthus expressly for the purpose of getting revenge for Atreus’ actions. With Agamemnon dead, Clytemnestra and Aegisthus declare themselves the permanent rulers of Argos. This carries on for another decade, until Clytemnestra and Agamemnon’s son Orestes returns home. Knowing that the Greek custom was for sons to avenge wrongdoing to their fathers, Aegisthus planned to kill Orestes on the same night as Agamemnon, but Orestes’ sister Electra snuck him out of the house. Now he has returned, he works with Electra to kill Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.
Things don’t go well for Orestes after that. As soon as he has killed his mother, he finds himself pursued by the Erinyes, horrible spirits of vengeance sent from the underworld to avenge unjust murders. It is not until the gods Apollo and Athena intervene, arranging a trial for Orestes to be formally acquitted of his guilt, that the Erinyes – better known today by their Latin name, Furies – finally leave Orestes alone. Finally, the cycle of vengeance is halted.
Coming in December, the next entry in our Theatre for All Free Season. Tickets are now available.
David Bullen is a writer, director, and academic specialising in the adaptation of ancient Greek drama. He has a PhD from Royal Holloway, University of London, where he has taught in the Department of Drama, Theatre, and Dance since 2013. In the UK he works predominantly with By Jove Theatre Company, an award-winning performance collective he co-founded in 2011. David is delighted to be working again with EastLine after first collaborating with them on their 2019 production of Sophocles’ Antigone, for which he wrote the translation.
Danny Higgins has been with EastLine Theatre since 2011, having seen it from its conception to its transition to nonprofit. Select EastLine credits include: Indecent, Romeo & Juliet, Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, King Charles III, Titus Andronicus, Buried Child, The Importance of Being Earnest, Incident at Vichy, Equus, Antigone, and Amadeus. As a writer, he is the co-creator of Prospero (Live), a new musical retelling of The Tempest. Thank you Bryan, for his patience.
Anthony Noto is a singer, actor, director, and video editor. For EastLine, he has previously appeared in The Truth, Amadeus, Columbinus, Treasure Island, and Hand to God. He is excited to be making his behind the scenes EastLine debut. Anthony is also the lead singer of the rock band Blue Movie. More at anthonynoto.net
Matt Rosenberg has been with EastLine since 2015, where he has served as Stage Manager, Director, and Actor. In his more than a decade in Long Island Theatre, he has stage managed almost 100 productions. Favorite EastLine credits include Equus, Gross Indecency, and Indecent.
Nicole Savin is a Long Island-based theatre-maker. She holds a BA (Hons) from Royal Holloway, University of London in Drama and Theatre Studies. She has been an EastLine contributor since 2016 and has directed productions of God of Vengeance, The Truth, and Treasure Island as well as appearing in productions at EastLine and across Long Island. Favourite EastLine acting credits include Indecent, The Glass Menagerie, Equus, and An Ideal Husband. Nicole is an Associate Director with By Jove Theatre Company, a London-based company. She is also on the literary team at The Playwrights Realm.
Remi Watts is EastLine’s Technical Director. She is excited to be working on this new adaptation of the Oresteia. Remi strives to create new and unique worlds through lights and sound. Some of their favorite credits include Peter and the Starcatcher, Treasure Island, and Amadeus. She is very hopeful for her future in theatre.
A note from the playwright.
Of the hundreds of plays written and performed in fifth century BCE Athens, there are just thirty-two that survive. These are the plays now called Greek tragedy. In the modern world, they have often been treated with a kind of reverence – texts that, like those from other ‘canonical’ writers such as Shakespeare, need to be ‘respected’ and ‘done right’. This presupposes that what text survives from two and a half thousand years ago is complete and reliable – and that the stories told are unique to their authors.
This could not be further from the truth. Although thirty-two plays are said to ‘survive’, all of them are fragmented in one way or another, full of errors, gaps, and ambiguities that require scholars to resolve – often through educated guesswork – before the texts can be understood. As for the stories, all but one of the surviving plays dramatise myth – which in ancient Greek simply means ‘story’. They are, therefore, retellings, not original narratives – and there is evidence that both playwrights and audiences enjoyed re-engaging with familiar tales in ways that spoke to their current times.
The myths that underpin the play you’re watching are a good example. A quarter of the surviving plays dramatise an episode in the lives of ‘the House of Atreus’, a family marked by successive bouts of violence between its own members. Three of the surviving plays dramatise the same episode: the violent ambitions of Electra against her mother Clytemnestra, and her brother Orestes’ return home to help her realise those ambitions. The oldest of the these dramatisations is the middle play in a trilogy by Aeschylus from 458 BCE, known collectively as the Oresteia (‘The Story of Orestes’). The trilogy also gave its audiences dramatisations of what led Orestes and Electra to want to kill their mother, and what happened next. In that final play of the trilogy, Aeschylus staged the first known courtroom drama, as Orestes is tried by the gods for his actions.
Aeschylus’ decision to conclude a violent cycle of interfamilial vengeance with a legal battle is no accident. He was sponsored by a man who had helped reform Athens’ own murder courts to help curb a culture of violent reprisal. The trilogy was, therefore, a tacit celebration for the audience in 458 BCE, marking another step in the evolving democracy of the city. But as an illustration of how these stories could be retold to reflect the times, fifty years later, Euripides staged Orestes, which also staged the fallout from the murder of his mother. In stark contrast to Aeschylus’ triumphant celebration of legal solutions within a glorious democracy, Euripides’ version has Orestes go on a rampage, attempting to overturn a democratically made decision to have him executed. This culminates with him holding his cousin hostage on the roof of a burning building. For the audience in 408 BCE, exhausted and suffering from a long war and recent real life threats to their democracy, Euripides’ play may well have felt a bitter reflection of the current moment.
This new staging of the myths aims to follow in this tradition of Athenian theatre, retelling the story in a new way for our own moment. There are multiple threats to democracy; trust in legal and law enforcement institutions has been called into question; and, in the context of a worldwide pandemic, we are facing daily the question of how we cope with so much death, so much trauma, so much grief. In Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, the first play of the Oresteia, the chorus remark that ‘learning comes through suffering’. Whether that is true of our moment, or whether we learn anything from the suffering staged in this version, is up to you: you’ll bear witness to what you’ve seen.
This performance was created with funding from the Ancient Worlds, Modern Communities initiative of the Society for Classical Studies.
This performance is made possible with funds from the Statewide Community
Regrant Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and administered by The
Huntington Arts Council.
EastLine Theatre is a nonprofit theatre company that BroadwayWorld calls ‘Long Island’s best kept secret’. EastLine aims to create theatre in unlikely spaces while re-examining the canon, exploring modern plays, and bringing original works to the attention of the community. EastLine is committed to creating opportunities for women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people.
EastLine Theatre is a proud member of the Huntington Arts Council and the Alliance of Resident Theatres / New York.