Electra
Old Vic Theatre, London SE1
2 stars

FRANK McGUINNESS’S 90-minute adaptation of Electra by Sophocles is certainly a lean and vigorous interpretation of this morally ambiguous play.

Trapped in a repetitive cycle of vengeance Clytemnestra (Diana Quick), now living with Aegisthus (Tyrone Huggins), has murdered her husband King Agamemnon in revenge for the sacrifice of her daughter Iphigeneia and Electra (Kristin Scott Thomas), in turn, vows to avenge her dead father by killing her mother.

The latter is certainly one of the most taxing female protagonists in Greek tragedy and Scott Thomas comes to the role having played Chekhov to acclaim.

But where a Chekhovian acting ensemble can offer a certain camouflage, there is nowhere to hide in Electra. The focus throughout is on the raging and inconsolable Electra and, unfortunately, Scott Thomas’s abilities buckle under the demand.

She has a lovely ironic comic touch, much suited to Chekhov, and McGuinness’s text does offer some such moments. But it is in the enactment of relentless visceral pain where it all goes wrong.

The Greek tragic form brings it own demands and they’re mishandled by director Ian Rickson, who forces a pace from the beginning which leaves the audience nowhere to go emotionally.

And it’s hard to determine who is at fault when, in one scene, Scott Thomas elicits unintended laughter from the audience when she receives her brother’s ashes.

Believing her brother Orestes (Jack Lowden) to be dead, it’s a moment of great grief but shortly after he appears before her and her tears turn to speechless joy.

Zoe Wannamaker memorably achieved that transition in an earlier production of this adaptation but Scott Thomas cannot make all the chameleon shifts demanded by the role and fails to grip her audience.

Unlike Lowden, who fails to make the most of his brief appearance as Orestes, Diana Quick as Clytemnestra — a brief appearance too — is magisterial.

The theatre-in-the-round staging designed by Mark Thompson is impressive but this results in some awkward blocking and the chorus appear not to be choreographed at all.

Far from fulfilling their role as “concerned humanity” they come across as three women hanging around and impeding the action.

Not a great Electra then and, judging by some of the ecstatic broadsheet reviews of the production, it is hard to believe we were all in the same theatre.

Runs until December 20, box office: oldvictheatre.com