This second drama in the Almeida's vital Greek season is not a revolutionary re-ordering... It does, though, cleverly refocus the play. Anne Carson, the superb Canadian poet who has provided a fine translation, is a classicist. No one is likely to quarrel with her interpretation. And no one could dispute the suppleness of her verse, which moves from teasing demotic bathos... to tumbling lyric waterfalls and an extraordinary, jazz-like swing for the Chorus. When you look at the lines on the page, squeezing and fanning out, you can almost hear the pulse. * Susannah Clapp, Guardian *
Anne Carson's new translation captures the original's concern with ideas of balance and doubleness, but it also has a gritty immediacy... The result is two hours of raw and exacting theatre... it convincingly makes the case for why it's still worth engaging with a play written almost 2,500 years ago. * Henry Hitchings, Evening Standard *
This is the real Greek, bloody-fantastical thing... a mostly faithful translation rather than a "new version" by Anne Carson blending irony with pure poetry... this production puts no single foot wrong in dance, delirium or idyll: it's the complete experience, and though it's so potent at such close quarters, its operatic dimension should make it a visitor to the Proms' vast Albert Hall amphitheatre next season. In the meantime, I want a copy of Carson's text... now available in a publication from Oberon - since it's far too rich to absorb on a single hearing. * The Arts Desk *
