Freedom is one of the themes that the author looks at in the play for example Electra is waiting for her freedom to be realised from the 'cage' which is her mother's ruling over her . Her freedom comes when her brother gets the revenge they have been seeking, and on the other hand her mother's freedom is to be fear free of the return of Orestes which comes with the news of Orestes death from the old man.
Sophocles explores the theme of conflict by juxtapositioning the character of Electra with her mother who have different views of what is just. Electra hates her mother for killing her father which is understandable and I think we would all hate to be in that house and to make things worse her mother marries the man who does the dirty work for Electra's mother. From Electra's point of view her Mother kills her Father so she can bring home another man however on the other side of the coin no one wants to be lonely.
Electra's first line is 'Ah me, ah me! ' which instantly get the attention of the audience then she says 'how often have ye heard the strains of my lament...' which instantly put the audience on her side. I think that the audience draws the quick conclusion that Electra's Mother is the antagonist, a trend we see in a lot of Sophocles tragedies. In her defence later in the script she says 'a mother may be wronged, but she never learns to hate her child.'
In another of Sophocles play's, Antigone we see an example of when a character seems to be in the wrong because of their actions, Creon decides that his brother should be left to perish because he fights at war against him. He may be in the wrong however he was next in line for the throne and I think if that was you in that situation your point of view of this character may differ because just maybe he took those actions not to look weak in front of the nation. I disagreed with Creon not allowing his own bloodline to be buried however I am not sure how I would have felt if my friend had fought against me let alone my own blood because its that would be him betraying me. Having learnt not to be biased the mother of Electra doesn't look so bad because I don't know how I would react if the person I am married to sacrifices our child, I cant think of any good reasons where that can be acceptable because everyone should the right to live.
Sophocles prefers to present an ambiguous question in may of his plays, which is interesting because the performance we watched in London was biased to Electra's side. The director had decided to emphasise how bad Electra is treated by her mother. The decision may have been for various reasons, for example it may have been because he had an actress in mind to play the part therefore he gave her a bigger part. Kristen Scott Thomas is well known in the industry therefore people would want to attend the performances of the play, which means they sell more which then benefits everyone in the production. Where there is drama there has to be conflict and conflict drives this play whoever there are other themes explored in the play for example there is the theme of revenge and also honour shown in the play as Electra says she mourns in her father's honour and Orestes prays to finish his mission to restore honour and take his place in the house which adds pride to the picture and many other themes which the playwright explores thought the other characters.
The language proved to be a bit of a challenge therefore to help us tackle this we had a workshop on classical theatre and performed Faustus in the lead up to Electra. We learnt a bit of the background story of the play which gave me a rough idea on the characters then we went to see it performed at the Old Vic which then put some ideas on how we were going to do it.
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