Greek by Mark-Anthony Turnage. Scottish Opera at Edinburgh International Festival 2017

Review - Greek by Mark-Anthony Turnage.
Scottish Opera and Opera Ventures at Edinburgh International Festival 2017

Hibernian vs Partick Thistle. Incest patricide and plague

Two years ago I combined an afternoon at a Partick Thistle away game in the capital, with an evening at the Edinburgh Festival. Unfortunately that day a 3-0 defeat by Hearts was what preceded an evening of Greek tragedy, with Juliette Binoche as Antigone. Much as the heroes of Greek plays often fail to learn the lessons of their ancestors, I optimistically tried to combine a trip to Easter Road to see Partick Thistle open their season with a match against Hibs, with another Greek tragedy in the evening. The day started much as it did two years ago, with a 3-1 Partick Thistle defeat setting a dark mood for the evening's entertainment. 

Hibernian 3-1 Partick Thistle

The Greek stories persist because they are good stories. They also give us a prism with which to examine our current world. This year at the Edinburgh Festival alongside Mark-Anthony Turnage's Opera, Zinnie Harris's re-telling of The Oresteia, which I saw (and loved) last year, in on show (Oresteia: This Restless House review). 

In Greek mythology Antigone is the daughter of Oedipus, her tragic fate set in motion by the history of her father's actions. Tonight we were going to hear about the deeds of the father. Mark-Anthony Turnage's Greek is an opera of Steven Berkoff's play of that name, which re-staged the Oedipus myth in the east end of London in the 1980s. 

Oedipus in Greek mythology, was left on a hillside to die by his father, King Laius, to prevent a prophecy that he would grow up to kill his father and marry his mother. Found and raised as their own by King Polybus and Queen Merope he hears the prophecy of what he is fated to do, from the Delphic oracle, and not knowing his real parentage flees Thebes to avoid his fate. In the classic example of  the Scot's phrase "whit's fir ye'll no go by ye" he ends up unknowingly killing his father, marrying Queen Jocasta his mother, and bringing a plague upon the lands by his actions. Discovering the truth he rips out his eyes and lives on forever in the strange mind of Sigmund Freud who believed we all want to emulate Oedipus' complex family dynamics.

The cast of Greek

Scottish Opera have recently become very competent at modern, smaller scale productions, such as their excellent The Devil Inside. Greek has a cast of four artists playing several roles and an orchestra of 18 or 19 musicians, yet it still packs a mighty punch. The co-production with Opera Ventures uses a bare, revolving stage set onto which imaginative projections give a stark, and when necessary, humourous atmosphere to the whole performance. The costumes, often requiring a quick turnover, also give it a distinctive, consistent and crisp feel. Taken from Berkoff's play, it is a story set not among Greek kings and queens, but working class families in Thatcher's dystopian Britain. Coming here straight from Easter Road, the opening scene greeted me with the rhythmic chanting onstage of Arsenal fans in an London pub. Alarmed by the racist chants of his father and his parents' belief in a fairground fortune-teller's alarming prophecy, shell-suited Eddy leaves home. 

Alex Otterburn as Eddy

The cast of Susan Bullock, Andrew Shore, Allison Cook and "Scottish Opera Emerging Artist" Alex Otterburn as Eddy were excellent throughout, both in singing and in the extravagant acting required of their parts. The words are sharp and witty throughout, with much dark humour at times. As London descends into riots and plague (the play was written whilst AIDS was running out of control) Eddy kills a cafe owner in a fight and marries his wife, before inevitably finding out at the end when his parents arrive years later that his true origins mean he has unknowingly fulfilled the prophecy. Oedipus pleaded to be excused his actions because he was unaware of what he was doing. Now Eddy knows what he has done, should the shame destroy everything he has? 

The orchestra keep the story moving along, with brassy jazz sounds at times, and a cacophony of percussion, with truncheons and riot shields at other moments. The 1980s setting feels unfortunately contemporary in a Tory led Britain fermenting division along racist lines and between those that have and have not. Are people responsible for their actions when they know not what they are doing? 

It was nice to see Steven Berkoff on stage at the end to take the plaudits from the audience, alongside Mark-Anthony Turnage and the cast and crew.

A thoroughly enjoyable night out, and I find it bizarre that the audience for this type of thing remains elusive. Opera has got to tear down its elitist image to make people aware of the imaginative and entertaining material it can provide. After a second night at the Edinburgh Festival, Greek will be coming to Glasgow in February 2018. I am planning to go see it again. 

Edinburgh skyline as we head home to Glasgow

The Suppliant Women. Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh , October 2016. Review

The Suppliant Women by Aeschylus. A New Version by David Greig



Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh on a sunny October night

As the new Artistic Director of the Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh, David Greig has begun his stint in this role by creating a new version of an ancient Greek play. Written 2500 years ago by Aeschylus, it is one of the world's oldest plays and yet the subject is chillingly contemporary. In fact many of the lines from the original play (which I recently wrote about here) fit perfectly in describing our world today.

Edinburgh Castle in October

On a crisp autumnal night in October we made our way through from Glasgow to the Athens of the North to see The Suppliant Women. Aeschylus' play is the first part of a tetralogy telling the story of The Danaids, a tale well known to the audiences of Athens that first saw it performed in around 470BCE. The Suppliant Women is the only surviving part of Aeschylus' Danaid Tetralogy. It tells of the 50 daughters of Danaus, fleeing across the sea from near Syria, escaping from forced marriage to their cousins, the sons of Aegyptus. They land in Greece at Argos and seek asylum. Although they may look foreign, they tell the people there of how they are descendants of the Argive heifer goddess Io, basically "we're all Jock Tamson's bairns".

Theatre of Dionysos, Athens

The play was first performed in the theatre of Dionysos in Athens, where the wealthy sponsors of the plays would carry out a libation before it began. This is a tradition which has been resurrected for The Suppliant Women, with different MPs and MSPs this week having performed the libation each night on stage at the opening of the play. We were told where the funding for our play came from, and the gods are offered an offering of wine (Dionysos was not just the god of theatre). It is a smart reminder of where the funding for theatre such as this comes from (largely the people, the demos, as it turns out). In that respect they are missing a trick in fully achieving the 30p in each £10 funding provided from the theatre bar by running it as a 90 minute piece with no interval, as I missed the chance to chip in an extra £4 for a wee tub of ice cream. We are asked to see if we can see anything of our current times reflected in the mirror of this old piece of theatre.

Theatre at Epidavros

With ancient paintings of theatre performances and Aeschylus' words themselves really all we have now to go on, what did ancient Greek theatre actually look and sound like? When you look at the scale of the theatre of Epidavros, despite its famous acoustics, it is hard not to imagine that music and a raised chorus of voices would be required to lift the sound to the cheap seats at the back. The Suppliant Women is unusual because the chorus here plays a large part in the story as a character. In David Greig's telling of the story they set the mood from the moment they stride on stage, rhythmically beating out the metre with their feet.

The stage is stripped back and open. The play is set in ancient times. The modern, casual dress of the chorus keeps us in the present. The chorus themselves is made up of local volunteers with professional actors Gemma May, Omar Ebrahim and Oscar Batterham taking the lead parts. The chorus though, the suppliant women themselves, are a fantastically well choreographed, ebbing and flow, huddling and scattering ensemble. The fact that the asylum seekers are here drawn from our local community emphasises the feeling that they are our kin. Written by David Greig, directed by Ramin Gray and with music composed by John Browne, the team behind The Suppliant Women have already worked together successfully with The Events. When that play toured it triumphantly used local choirs on stage as part of the piece, and with the Suppliant Women again local people will be used. The chorus in Edinburgh will be replaced by people of Belfast and Liverpool when the play moves on.

The rhythm that started with the marching feet carries on through the play in the pulse of the language and John Browne's music, played by two musicians. I am no expert of ancient music but it feels and sounds true, equally Eastern and at times like a mournful Celtic keening. Particular credit must go to the Aulos player whose playing was very evocative.

Aulos player from Ancient Greece

When the women are met by King Pelasgus of Argos (Oscar Batterham) he is suspicious of these foreigners and the troubles that they might bring. Sharply dressed and with a politicians measured assessment he decides to put it to the people of Argos to decide - the word democracy is first found in Aeschylus' writing. It falls to a man, their father to make their case in the city, whilst the women still fearing violence against them from men stay in the safety of the holy temple they have come to. Their father warns them that people will fear them, they should "always be modest", "defer" to people, keep your head down and don't cause trouble.

Only this week the people of Hungary were asked to vote in a referendum on whether asylum seekers should be allowed into their country. Whilst 98% of Hungarians who voted stated that they would not allow refugees entry to their country, most people in the country managed to scupper the vote by not participating. I don't need to labour the point that the words from 2500 years ago seem again and again to echo to our times. Even when the people of Argos vote overwhelmingly to welcome these people in need (and more than that, to fight to defend them if required) dark clouds (or sails) are on the horizon and the men from their homeland arrive to drag them back by force. The older women of Argos welcome the women, but with the coda that they should not scorn Aphrodite but welcome men and lust as that is the way of things. The suppliant women display a more independent streak, as they leave the stage with their exiting ode (Exodus).

In a week where Theresa May's Conservative party asks employers to report foreign workers, overseas doctors are being told they are no longer welcome and there will be a crackdown on overseas students and visas, it is clear that Danaus' warning to his daughters that people fear foreigners is as resonant today as it was for the original audiences. The people of Argos are shown to have done the right thing in the play, aware of the potential consequences. We clearly still need taught this lesson.

On top of the language, words like drama, democracy and exodus that came from the Ancient Greeks, I am astounded at the modern parallels being found in the stories of ancient plays of Aeschylus. Recently the three plays of The Orestiae was retold (as This Restless House) by the Citizen's Theatre. Working with a smaller fragment of source material The Suppliant Woman packs a mighty punch. It is also the nearest that I have been to encountering what the ancient Athenians maybe saw. Stripped of marble columns and chiffony robes, the words are allowed to sing out. If the aim of David Greig's time at the Lyceum is to bring poetry and community into the theatre, he is off to a flying start.

I would really encourage you to go and get a ticket for this if you get the chance.

As it is national poetry day today, I will finish with a short poem from a modern Greek poet and playwright - Stamatis Polenakis, called Elegy.

"Nothing, not even the drowning of a child, 

stops the perpetual motion of the world. 

I know that today or yesterday some child drowned; 

a child who drowned today or yesterday 

is nothing - an inanimate puppet 

in the hands of God, a short motionless poem 

in the perpetual motion of the world."

The Suppliant Women by Aeschylus

The Suppliant Women by Aeschylus

I have previously written about how much I enjoy seeing the works of ancient Greece in our theatres when I wrote about the National Theatre of Scotland re-working The Oresteia by Aeschylus earlier this year at the Citizens Theatre. The resonances in the modern world of these works first performed 2500 years ago are crystal clear. Barely five months later and Aeschylus is soon to be back on the stage in Scotland with The Suppliant Women being performed at the Lyceum Theatre in October 2016.

"Aeschylus. Translation & Lexicon"

The old edition of Aeschylus translations which I have at home starts with a quote on the frontispiece from an earlier translator. In a preface to his 1824 translation of Aeschylus' Agamemnon, John Symmons, complaining about the challenges he faced wrote...

"The times, customs, religion and manners are changed; words which vibrated to the ear, and went straight to the heart, of an Athenian, causing a thrill through their crowded theatres, are known to us only by the dim light of lexicons, context, and glossaries; and even when understood, we search in vain for corresponding expressions in or own language."

Knowing that I was definitely planning to go and see the new version of The Suppliant Women at the Lyceum Theatre by David Greig I read through Aeschylus' words today. One thing that jumps off the page from the off is the fact that the "the times, customs, religions and manners" do not seem to have changed so much.

The Suppliants is the first, and only surviving part, of a tetralogy of plays telling the tale of the Danaides. These 50 women, the daughters of Danaus, leave their home near Syria and flee across the Mediterranean Sea in boats and land in Greece. They are being pursued by 50 sons of their uncle Aegyptus who wish to force them to marry. When they arrive in Greece they seek asylum in Argos. King Pelasgus is reluctant to take them in but puts it to his people who welcome them warmly. As a Herald from Aegyptus arrives to drag them away, King Pelasgus threatens the Herald and takes the women into his city.

The Supplicants by Aeschylus

The echoes in our world of today barely need spelled out, but let me do just that. There are many translations and editions of the story but I am quoting from the one that I have. This was a kind gift to my wife from an old family friend many years ago; a 19th century edition of 2500 year old plays, given to a 14 year old.

Unusually for a Greek play the chorus play a part as characters in the story, here made up of the 50 women fleeing their homeland. In the opening lines they tell of their journey.

"wafted here in ships having set sail from the mouths of the Nile.....having left the divine land bordering on Syria, we fled."

Refugees arriving in Lesbos

If this scenario is unsettling in its familiarity, the language that the chorus use to describe those whom they are fleeing is similarly disquieting in its modern echoes.

"...the male-abounding insolent swarm, sprung from Aegyptus..."

Whilst he was British Prime Minister, David Cameron was accused of dehumanising migrants by describing those trying to get to Britain to seek a new life as "a swarm of people coming across the Mediterranean". This type of language, relating to insects rather than people, was then quickly picked up and used again in subsequent days by Nigel Farage, and the Daily Mail and The Express newspapers. Comparisons were drawn between the way The Daily Mail described refugees coming to Britain today to the inflammatory and irresponsible way it described Jews fleeing Nazism as "pouring into" Britain from Germany in its pages in 1938.

Daily Mail newspaper articles in 2015 and 1938

The women hope that the local gods have been kind to them by allowing them calm waters to cross the sea and they humbly plea for help from Jove at his altar, suppliant, laying boughs here.

"...fearing my friends, if there is any one who cares about this flight of ours...But there is even to those who fly from war afflicted an altar, a defence..."

...a "surer defence than a tower" they hope. They invoke Apollo, a god who like them was "once exiled" from heaven. King Pelasgus arrives, suspicious of their foreign appearance.

"Of what country is this band that we address, not Grecian in its garb, delicately clothed in barbaric robes and many folds of dress...you are more like to Libyan women"

Syrian women arriving in Greece

When they make their case for help Pelasgus is torn between the possible consequences whichever way he acts; fearful of bringing danger upon his city or the shame of not welcoming strangers.

"...lest at any time the people shall say, if perchance any thing fall out not such as we desire to happen, honouring strangers you have destroyed the city."

When the women threaten to hang themselves from the temple walls, King Pelasgus puts it to the people of the city, who vote wholeheartedly to accept the women, and threaten exile for those that do not.

King Pelasgus asks them to leave their suppliant boughs at the temple "as a sign of their trouble." To me this phrase just made me think of the piles of (often useless) life-jackets lying on beaches in Lesbos, the modern sign of the troubles today's refugees have faced. Bound to people and clutched by people making perilous crossings, more in hope than expectation that they will bring some safety.

Life jackets on a beach in Lesbos, Greece

The Herald of Aegyptus' sons arrives to demand their return. In fear the women call out about the fate they fear awaits them in their homeland.

"There await us draggings, draggings and stabbings, bloody deadly cutting off of heads."

King Pelasgus dispatches the Herald sent from their pursuers, demanding he show respect for the gods and the will of his people. He offers the homes of his city to take in the women. They enter the city walls and safety, but know that they cannot tell what fate lies ahead for them. They are in the hands of the gods. Their father, Danaus, cautions them.

"But every one bears a ready evil tongue against a stranger, and to speak slander is an easy thing."

I was going to put a photograph of Nigel Farage here to illustrate the point, but instead an image of refugees trapped at a camp near the northern border of Greece. Here they face further hardship, suspicion and help seems in short supply. A modern chorus whose voices seem to be going unheard.

In last week's newspapers Scottish local authorities were being praised for welcoming their 1000th Syrian refugee to the country, a third of the total which the UK has accepted. However in Greece, a country struggling with a crippled economy, 856,723 refugees arrived in 2015, like The Suppliant Women, by sea. The attitudes and fears of the rulers and people of ancient Argos are playing out there on a daily basis. The scale of the situation is difficult to grasp.

In modern Greece the ancient, crumbling walls of Argos still sit atop a hill in the Peloponnese, but in the time of Aeschylus the audience would know them well, the city where the women sought help. Like the words of Aeschylus, these ruins still speak to us today, and his words speak with an alarming authority, a comment on recent events in the Mediterranean.

The walls of Ancient Argos, atop a hill in Greece today

The spectacle of Ancient Greek theatre is lost to us, as are many of the major works. Things go badly for the Danaides in the next stage of the story, but we will never know how Aeschylus told this part of their tale. 

Theatre of Dionysus, Athens, where Aeschylus' plays were often performed

With the original in mind, obviously the piece of theatre being created at the Lyceum Theatre will use this as a springboard for a novel work. Re-uniting writer David Greig, director Ramin Gray and composer John Browne who worked together to produce The Events, it would appear a nod to the music of Greek theatre is being planned. So it is with great anticipation that I aim to make a birthday trip to Edinburgh to see the work of Aeschylus on stage again.

Tickets are available at the Lyceum website (but do seem to be going fast).

This Restless House. Citizens Theatre. May 2016

The Oresteia by Aeschylus and This Restless House by Zinnie Harris

The Citizens Theatre in Glasgow, in collaboration with the National Theatre of Scotland, are currently performing a new trilogy of plays by Zinnie Harris, This Restless House, based on the 2500 year old works by Aeschylus, The Oresteia. Before seeing the new plays I went back to look over Aeschylus' work, which for me brings back happy memories of my times visiting and working in Greece. On every trip to Greece I love to tick off ancient sites and the scenes of great dramas and myths. The Oresteia at the time it was first performed was commenting on real events in the Athenian courts of the day, as well as talking about kings, cities and gods that would be known to all in the audience. I have been lucky enough to visit many of the settings from The Oresteia, so before a brief review of This Restless House I have used this as an excuse write about beautiful, wonderful Greece. Ελλάδα, σ'αγαπώ.

(NB If you are unaware of this two and a half thousand year old story, this blog contains spoilers, so look away now.)

The Oresteia by Aeschylus

The origins of Western drama lie in Ancient Greece. Two and a half millenia ago festivals and competitions of drama were taking place and although only a small fraction of these plays have survived to this day, those that have are being endlessly performed, re-imagined and re-told. The oldest surviving intact drama is often thought of as Aeschylus' historical tragedy The Persians. It won a prize at the Dionysian festival at the foot of the Acropolis in 472BCE. By this time its creator had already been writing for 25 years. Only six of Aeschylus' 80-odd plays survive to this day (seven if Prometheus Bound is credited to him). He was in his sixties when he wrote The Oresteia trilogy of connected plays, telling the bloody story of Mycenaean King Agamemnon and his family.

Theatre of Dionysus, Athens, where Aeschylus' plays were often performed

Ancient Greek drama, stories still being told and re-told in Scottish theatres

The three plays of The Oresteia are named after Orestes, son of Agamemnon. They tell the story of a family fated by the bloody history of their ancestors to continue a cycle of violence and revenge. Through the centuries since it was written people have tried to unpick the additions and accretions of subsequent transcriptions, to get back to the 2500 year old original. In 1847 Wagner spoke of the effect it had had on him. It is said that his Ring Cycle was inspired by The Oresteia. George Eliot's character Adam Bede used to sit and read The Oresteia over breakfast and often quoted from it. The oldest book we have in our house is a beautiful 1843 edition of Aeschylus' works, perhaps the edition that Adam Bede was reading.

The Oresteia, 1843 edition

Aeschylus himself was born near Athens in about 545BCE. Although we know him as a writer of tragedies, his epitaph in Ancient Greece spoke only of his valour in the Battle of Marathon, fighting against the Persians in 490BCE, a battle in which his brother was killed. Ten years later he was alive at the time of the Spartan defeat at Thermopylae to Xerxes. He died around the age of 67 whilst in Syracuse in Sicily. It is reputed that he was killed when an eagle dropped a tortoise upon his head, mistaking it for a rock to crack open the shell. A tragic death so bizarre you suspect it may be true.

The Oresteia trilogy of plays were first performed in 458 BCE. They start with a cycle of bloodshed and revenge and end with the world deciding whether it should instead move on from that and accept justice, and the rule of law.

The lion gates at Mycenae

After ten years away King Agamemnon returns to Mycenae, in the Northern Peloponnese, fresh from victory in the Trojan War. He has with him Cassandra, daughter of King Priam of Troy. Before sailing he obeys the gods' command to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia, in order to allow his ships to sail to Troy. With Agamemnon away his wife, Clytemnestra, is in an adulterous relationship with Aegisthus, cousin of Agamemnon. He believes the throne is rightfully his, after Agamemnon's father, Atreus, killed the brother of Aegisthus and fed him to their father Thyestes. The bloody acts of the past ensure that bloody retribution will follow in the future. 

For refusing his advances at the opening of a temple in Corinth, Cassandra, a princess and prophetess, has been cursed by Apollo with the ability to tell the future, but that nobody will believe her prophecies. The original Cassandra complex.

Temple at Corinth, beautiful Acrocorinth behind

The first play ends with Clytemnestra avenging their daughter Iphigenia, swinging her axe and killing her husband Agamemnon, and also Cassandra. She and Aegisthus become rulers of all Argos.

Ancient Argos, atop the hill, 49km from Corinth, 15km from Mycenae

Archaeologist  Heinrich Schliemann saw the events in ancient literature as a guidebook to the Greek world he excavated. In uncovering the city of Mycenae he found several grand tombs and from the contents within declared that he had found the tombs of Cassandra and of Agamemnon. The second play opens at the tomb of Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers. The daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, Electra, is discussing revenge with her brother Orestes. Electra convinces him to adopt a disguise and get into the royal palace. There he kills Aegisthus. He falters at the thought of killing his mother, until egged on by the god Apollo. Ridden by guilt he flees, pursued by the Furies (Eumenides), a curse from his mother in female form.

My children stepping into "Agamemnon's tomb" at Mycenae

Orestes kills Clytemnestra, a relief from a Roman sarcophagus, St Petersburg Hermitage Museum

The third play opens in the shrine of Apollo at Delphi where Orestes has fled the Furies. The oracle commands he travels to Athens and stand trial. The goddess Athena organises proceedings there, with a jury of citizens, Apollo as his advocate and the Furies as his accusers. With the jury divided Athena casts the deciding vote in favour of Orestes. The Furies threaten to turn their ire on the city of Athens itself, until Athena placates them with the promise of a place for Athenians to worship them in the city.

Temple of Apollo, Delphi

The cycle of revenge and bloodshed is ended with the rule of law and justice by the state. This final act is set at the Areopagus, the rocky site of a court in the time of Aeschylus. This is just at the foot of the Acropolis. Later the Areopagus was where Paul stood to deliver a famous sermon in Athens. It also gave its name to a prose polemical by Milton in 1644, Areopagitica, opposing censorship and arguing for freedom of speech.

Tourists snake up the Acropolis to the Parthenon, the Areopagus
lies just to the right on this photograph

The original music, dance and spectacle of Greek theatre is lost to us, but the stories live on. We have to re-imagine how the chorus and performers interacted with the story and the audience. The vase below shows a Greek performance of The Libation Bearers, the scene where Orestes is about to slay Clytemnestra, and she exposes her breast that once suckled him saying "Hold, oh child, and have shame." Again and again characters are presented with moral dilemmas where right and wrong are ambiguous. Despite being commanded to act by Apollo, can he kill his own mother? In the background a Fury is already rising, snakes held in her hands. 

Vase showing the Orestes being performed,
from the J. Paul Getty Museum

This Restless House by Zinnie Harris

I really like the photograph used by the Citizens Theatre to advertise the trilogy of plays they have produced, This Restless House, based upon the Oresteia. A family is in turmoil, a blur of movement, apart from the steady gaze of a young daughter at the centre. This is how Zinnie Harris reframes the story, by putting at the centre of it Electra, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra.

Photograph used to advertise This Restless House

The three plays, put on over two performances, have been put in a contemporary setting, with the original place and characters put there. The delicate balancing act of using modern vernacular (and swearing) whilst still giving the characters gravitas works right from the off when we are introduced to the chorus. Three drunken vagrants, witnesses to everything, but largely unseen, with their impotent gnashing of teeth.

Part One, called Agamemnon's Return, opens in what resembles a shabby 1970s working men's club. After the brutal murder of her daughter by Agamemnon, Clytemnestra enters like a drunken cabaret singer, bitter and damaged. When Agamemnon returns from war, the ghost of Iphigenia is always present between them. The fetid atmosphere is built up by the dystonic musical score by Nikola Kojabashia. In Aeschylus' day the violence happens off stage, but here when Clytemnestra stabs the unarmed Agamemnon in his bath he runs naked onto the stage where Clytemnestra finishes butchering him, and unable to escape her fate, kills Cassandra in the process. With female characters the focus of this story, the fates of Iphigenia, Clytemnestra and Electra are now bound together.

(It was around about the point where Clytemnestra was slaughtering her husband that my wife and I remembered that it was our wedding anniversary tonight, an alternative interpretation of "until death us do part".)

Part Two, The Bough Breaks, sees Electra trying to banish the ghost of her father who she feels is tormenting her mother, Clytemnestra. Pouring libations of wine and vodka onto Agamemnon's tomb she meets her brother Orestes who feels damned to avenge his father. Like an unscratchable itch he cannot get this thought from his mind, sleepless and trying to drown it with alcohol he feels powerless to alter his destiny. Putting the female characters to the fore, Electra is the one bold enough to avenge her father when the time comes, Clytemnestra now a shadow of herself, knowing she is fated to eternal damnation. 

In Part Three, called Electra and her Shadow,  the setting has shifted, and it feels like a bit of a clunking gear change, as we move from a world of Ancient Greeks in contemporary garb, to the very real world of a modern psychiatry ward. Electra ended the second act in a seizure and is tormented by demons. Feeling powerless to control them or escape them her psychiatrist tries to show her that she is not a puppet to fate. The empathetic psychiatrist has to confront her own demons and the final scenes give us a version Aeschylus' divided jurors. With ghosts getting to be heard at the end the last scene packs a powerful punch that left me with a tear in the corner of my eye.


The acting, was excellent throughout, grueling in places. Particular mention must go to Pauline Knowles as Clytemnestra, George Anton as a brooding Agamemnon, Olivia Morgan as Electra and Lorn MacDonald as a twitchy Orestes and a gangly chorus member. 

The third part almost stands as a separate play in tone and message, but together the plays are a powerful re-imagining of the words and ideas from Aeschylus. The characters feel that they are doomed by events to follow a certain path, and powerless to change things. Their impotence is self-imposed and they need to be shown to take responsibility for their own actions. Maybe it is just because of the type of people that I work with that I saw a link in all this with those that feel incapable of tackling an addiction such as alcoholism. Drinkers may feel it is an inevitable response to earlier events, drowning out their demons, and then later their headaches, itches, shakes, nightmares and seizures. When drunk, are you still responsible for the actions you take?

In the plays alcohol swills about repeatedly, from louche cabaret singers, to drunk drivers and alcoholic fathers having vodka poured onto their graves. Many characters display textbook symptoms of alcoholism and a powerlessness to change their ways. Is drink now our contemporary god and demons? Well, it has been around for a while, hasn't it? The festivals of Dionysus, where the plays of Aeschylus were first performed, the driving force of Greek theatre, were festivals to the god of wine making and a frenzy of excess.

Anyway, I'll raise a glass to a powerful re-telling of some meaty stories.

Xylouris White, Gig Review, Glasgow

Xylouris White, Gig Review, King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow. Nov 2014

I like it when you happen upon an album, look into the musicians a bit and then find that they are playing my town a couple of days later. I picked up the album Goats by George Xylouris and Jim White (performing as Xylouris White) after reading good reviews of it in several places. I was always going to warm to it as I have a strong affection for Greece after spending several summers there, where I have many good friends. One thing my Greek friends have tried to teach me is the difference between decent Greek music and "dog music" - skyladika music. I have kind of got that now and my personal preferences are towards Rembetiko, but I still never got the hang of what music would suddenly spring a sedate crowd onto their feet to dance around the room with the first chord. 

George Xylouris is from Crete, the lute playing son of famous musician Psarantonis (Antonis Xylouris). He has played before with Australian drummer Jim White and the pair have now come together to record an album and tour. White was co-founder of the Dirty Three (with Warren Ellis and Mick Turner) and has collaborated with Bonnie Prince Billie, Nick Cave, PJ Harvey amongst others. These diverse backgrounds come together on a largely instrumental album that feels like an extended jam session, the album produced by Fugazi's Guy Picciotto. When I was driving up to Crianlarich last week in the dark to get up a mountain early, this album, Goats, was on repeat in the car and accompanied the trip perfectly.

Jim White and George Xylouris at King Tut's, Glasgow

Their gig in Glasgow drew out a large Greek following to King Tut's. Glasgow based psychadelic-folk-rock band Trembling Bells, with drummer Alex Neilson, provided lively support. Then the wild-haired pair came onstage and riffed back and forwards between lute and mesmeric drumming. There was more singing from Xylouris in the live show than on the album, and some beautiful music on show. The Greek crowd were a bit more unruly and chatty than the usual Glasgow audience, but the experienced pair on stage were able to reel them in again and again and after a quiet piece hypnotised everyone, they were sprung into life for a Greek dance around the room, with it has to be said some impressive solo efforts on the dance front. A lovely evening, and the only time that I've ever bought a set of worry beads/κομπολόγια from the merchandise stall.

Τι όμορφη μουσική. Ευχαριστώ πολύ

Greek Football League Teams in Thessaloniki

In recent years when we are on holiday I've taken my running shoes along, and if my kids have had the audacity to have a long lie some mornings, I'll take myself off for a wee run about town. If you are only in town for a few days I think that you can get under the skin of a city a bit if you head off the beaten track and go where the locals go. As a follower of Partick Thistle Football Club, if you were visiting my city I think you could do worse than seek out the football league grounds here to see a bit of Glasgow (to save you the bother of finding a map, I've done it for you). Last year these morning runs took me to the backstreets around the grounds of St Pauli in Germany and to AZ, FC Groningen and Telstar in the Netherlands.

Greek football

Athens viewed from the Acropolis

As a Grecophile I like to keep an eye on a couple of twitter feeds which have news on Greek football, although they are as interested in Greeks playing in foreign leagues as they are in their own domestic league. This year I was in Greece whilst their national team had a decent run in the World Cup. Unfortunately whilst we were in Athens they were eliminated by Costa Rica. The Greek league itself is rather stifled as a competitive league by the dominance of the "big clubs" from Athens.

Club badges of Panathinaikos and Olympiacos

Within the past 21 years Olympiacos have won the league 16 times, Panathinaikos 4 times and AEK Athens only once. 1988 was the last year that a team from outwith Athens won the league (in Scotland the last time the league was won by someone outwith the Glasgow "Old Firm" was even longer ago, 1985 when Aberdeen won).

Club badge of AEK Athens

The Greek league has a pyramid system, with the top "Superleague" composed of 18 teams who play 34 games in a season, with 3 teams relegated to the "Football League" below. The upper leagues compete for the Greek Cup, and the multiple lower leagues, which become regional the further down you go, competing for the Greek Amateur Cup. The league system is currently ranked 12th by UEFA (11 places ahead of the Scottish League) giving them 2 Champions League places. 

In European competition their greatest moment came in 1971 when Panathinaikos were defeated in the European Cup final at Wembley by Ajax. The great Ferenc Puskás was the manager at the time, and the Panathinaikos supporting father of a Greek friend has told me about following his team to London that day. More recently in the Champions League era, Greek teams have twice made it to the quarter finals and once to the semi-final.

Thessaloniki

My plan had been to get up and jog about the grounds in Athens early one morning when we were there. However, British Airways scuppered this plan by stranding our luggage at Heathrow Airport for 4 days, by which time we had moved on from Athens. So once I had got my running shoes back, we had arrived in the second city of Greece, Thessaloniki (Thessalonica).

Roman arch and rotunda (which later became a mosque and then a church) in Thessaloniki.

This port city in Macedonia, northern Greece, has a population of almost 800,000 people. Thessaloniki was founded almost 2500 years ago by King Cassander of Macedon, who married Alexander the Great's half-sister Thessalonike. It became the capital of the Greek provinces in Roman times under Emperor Galerius and Saint Paul came to the city in 49AD and produced his "Letters to the Thessalonians".

Thessaloniki viewed from the Byzantine and Ottoman-era fortress walls

Later it became the second wealthiest city of the Byzantine empire. From the 15th century it was under Ottoman rule for around 500 years, about 100 years longer than southern Greece was. In 1881 it was the birthplace of Kemal Ataturk, the first president of Turkey. The 20th century started with the Balkan Wars in the region. Then in 1917 a huge swathe of the old city was destroyed by a great fire. After the First World War the break up of the Ottoman Empire led to the city becoming Greek again, with a massive "population exchange" occurring between Greece and Turkey. 

Holocaust Memorial by the waterfront, Thessaloniki

Bombed by the Italians and then occupied by the Germans in the Second World War, over 50,000 Jewish residents of the city were deported to their deaths by the Nazis.

Now the city's port is becoming a major hub for trade in Southeastern Europe. Thessaloniki is home to two of Greece's largest universities and as a result has a relatively young population, which means it has an excellent variety of tavernas, restaurants and bars to choose from. The large shopping streets in the city centre can snarl up with traffic during the day and the city is currently building an underground train system, although when I was there last week this appeared to have ground to a halt over uncovered archaelogical finds in the middle of Egnatio Street.

Sunset over the port at Thessaloniki

Like the rest of Greece people have been badly affected by the economic crisis, with youth unemployment levels being very high in the city. However on visiting the city again this year after a gap of almost 20 years I found it as lively, as handsome and as friendly as ever. Okay, I'll admit I'm biased as I spent some time here as a student and have many Greek friends in the area, but I do think it is a city that more people should look into visiting. It is becoming easier as from the UK, Easyjet fly to Thessaloniki airport from Manchester, BA from Gatwick and Ryanair from Stansted.

Night view of Thessaloniki for the upper town (Ano Poli).

Football in Thessaloniki

As is the case in Spain, many Greek football teams are part of a multi-sport club which share a common identity and facilities. The three main football teams in Thessaloniki are Aris FC, Iraklis FC and PAOK. All three were founding members of the Greek football league in 1927-28. Unfortunately their associated sports clubs appear to be having more success than their football teams recently. Basketball is big in Greece. Aris BC dominated the Greek basketball league for a decade and won the European Cup Winners Cup at that time. Once in the 1990s I arrived at Thessaloniki airport at the same time as a new signing for them, to find an airport full of chanting basketball fans greeting him. Iraklis BC won the inaugural basketball league championship in Greece, and their volleyball team have been crowned European champions before.

Iraklis FC

The badge of Iraklis FC 1908

The oldest of the football teams is Iraklis FC. Founded in 1908, whilst the city was still under Ottoman rule as the "Ottoman Greek Association of Thessaloniki, Hercules" they play in the blue and white of the Greek national flag and have Hercules resting on his club on their badge.


Financial chaos at the club over the last 10 years has led to relegation and bankruptcy, but at present they appear to be getting back on track after a merger with the smaller Pontioi Katerinis club. The new club goes under various names, such as PAE Iraklis 1908 but in most respects is a continuation of the old club. They will start the 2014-15 season in the Football League, the second tier of Greek football.

Their home ground is the impressive Kaftanzogliou Stadium, which was renovated for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.

Kaftanzogliou Stadium, home of Iraklis

It has a capacity of almost 28,000 and is a frequently used athletics arena, with a running track separating the fans from the pitch. On the morning that I was there a group of young army cadets appeared to be using the athletics track of the stadium, whilst a more middle aged selection of joggers were using the adjacent sports field for training.

Aris FC

Club badge of Aris FC

About 3.5km away from Kaftanzogliou stadium lies Aris FC. Founded in 1914, the club is named after Ares, the god of war. The club badge features a seated image of the god "resting, always on guard to fight if necessary" as the club put it. Until this season they were in the Superleague, but after finishing last in the 2013-14 season they have been relegated to the Football League.

Kleanthis Vikelidis Stadium, home of Aris.

An average home crowd last year of just over 7,000 made their way to the 20,000 capacity Kleanthis Vikelidis Stadium. Their colours are yellow and black, recalling the Byzantine colours of old Thessaloniki which can still be found on the two-headed eagle flags at many Greek Orthodox churches in the city. About 10 years ago financial difficulties led to the creation of the Aris Members' Association, giving fan control of the club.

When I ran past their ground I have to say it looked decidedly shabby after visiting their near neighbours, but with the current lack of cash it seems this is where they stay for now.

PAOK

Club badge of PAOK

Lying almost halfway between these two grounds (making it an easy circuit to get around all three grounds in one morning run) is found PAOK Football Club at Toumba Stadium.

PAOK in recent times have been the most successful of the Thessaloniki teams, and for the 2014-15 season will be the only city team in the Superleague. Founded in 1926 the name (roughly) stands for Pan-Thessalonian Athletics Club of Constantinopolitans. As the name suggests football is not the only sport at the club. They also have basketball, cycling, handball, volleyball, athletics, wrestling, hockey, weightlifting, swimming and water polo clubs. Playing in black and white stripes their badge is (like AEK Athens) the two-headed eagle. This and the name hark back to the club's roots as Hermes Sports Club, in a Greek community of Istanbul, founded in 1877. The post-war emigration of Greeks to Thessaloniki brought the club to the town under its new name.

In what is becoming a recurrent story here, the club came close to financial ruin 10 years ago, but appears to have stabilised and continues to work towards paying off previous debts. This includes the stated aim of recruiting more players through their academies than from expensive foreign imports. Old club favourite, and native of the city, Dimitris Salpingidis returned as club captain recently after being sold to Panathinaikos in 2006 in a bid by the club to raise cash.

Toumba Stadium, home to PAOK
(The "mia kardia" sign means "one heart" I think)

Last season they finished second in the league. The teams which finish 2nd to 5th in the league play-off for the remaining European places. They lost out to Panathinaikos for Greece's second Champions League place, with Olympiacos taking the other Champions League berth. This means that they will join the Europa League at the play-off round in 2014-15. The stadium capacity is 28,000 and the average home gate last year was just over 13,000.

It took me a while to click that the graffiti proclaiming "IRA" on various walls in the city is presumably from the fans of Iraklis. PAOK and ARIS graffiti was also much in evidence, usually followed by the gate number where the loyal fans who made their scrawl gather, for example Gate 4 is where the largest group of PAOK fans gather. As a boy who grew up in Glasgow of the 1970s and 80s, after seeing IRA daubed on various walls I had initially expected to turn a corner to find UDA, FTP or FTQ across the next wall.

Visiting these grounds in Thessaloniki, the funny thing was that you could just about throw a blanket over the three of them. It is clear that the financial difficulties football clubs have faced in Scotland are just as apparent in Greece, and the solution being sought of bringing through young players to the first team is here also seen as the solution. Two parts in place in the Greek league structure have been suggested as solutions for Scottish problems. They have a pyramid system in place, and a larger top league, where teams play each other only twice. Two automatic relegation places and a play-off for the team in the third bottom slot mean there is a churn of teams to the lower leagues. Due to successes in previous years in Europe, the champions go straight into the Champions League group stage, whilst the next four teams have a play-off of 3 home and 3 away games to decide who gets the last Champions League slot and who slots into the which of the 3 Europa Cup slots Greece has. In recent years this has meant that once Olympiacos have won the league, other teams still have something to play for.

One thing is clear, the Greek national team seems to be over-achieving when you look at it compared to the Scotland team (or the England team for that matter). There are many more Greeks playing successfully in foreign leagues than there are Scots doing the same. Whether the league set up, youth development or just pragmatic management of the international team is responsible, surely we can learn something from them. Since they first appeared at a major championship in Euro 1980 they are now regular qualifiers for the Euros and World Cups. Crowned Euro 2004 champions, the Germans knocked them out at the quarter final stage in Euro 2012 and in this summer's World Cup in Brazil, despite their acknowledged  lack of superstar players, they still made it to the knockout stage.

Whether it is for football, history, nightlife or archaeology, I recommend that you wander the streets of Thessaloniki sometime soon.