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ANDROMACHE
A RADICAL ADAPTATION OF JEAN RACINE'S NEOCLASSICAL POTBOILER
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Written and Directed by Gary Graves
Show opened May 27th, 1994 and ran through June 25th at St. John's Presbyterian Church in Berkeley.
Cast included: Dylan Kussman*, Amy Ukena, Michael Oosterom*, Megan Blue Stermer, Eowyn Mader, Dominic Riley, John Girot, Nicole Galland, and Michael Sloper.
*appears courtesy of Actors Equity Association
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Orestes loves Ermione - Ermione loves Pyrrhus - Pyrrhus loves Andromache. Andromache is the catalytic corner of a love quadrangle that eventually erupts into deception and destruction. Loyal to her husband, the widowed Andromache must struggle against the threats an advances she receives from her lovelorn captor, Pyrrhus. As a result of his ruthless determination to have Andromache, Pyrrhus spurns the betrothed princess, Ermione. Ermione in turn uses the obsessed Orestes to execute her vengeance. Although Andromache is the only real prisoner, the others are equally enslaved by their passions. Unrequited love dissolves the ability to reason, paralyzes the will, and ultimately overrides the most powerful of instincts - self-preservation.
Jean Racine, 1639-1699, is widely recognized as a great tragic poet and one of the foremost dramatists in French history. Andromache was first performed before the court at Versailles, in the Queen's apartments, November 17, 1667.
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"(Central Works') version of Racine's Andromache set little electrical charges going up and down my spine."
--Judith Green, San Jose Mercury
" ...if you haven't yet visited the folks at Central Works, now's a damn good time. Their current productions of Jean Racine's 1667 tragedy Andromache is a model of superior, low-budget theater
attuned to the needs of contemporary audiences."
--Rick Roberts, SF Guardian
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