Iphigenia: or the sacrifices of a young woman in nine movements – Hope Theatre, London

Director: Elsie Yager

Rethinking the role and expectations placed on women in Greek tragedy has received considerable impetus in the last year with plays such as Kyo Choi’s Galápagos and Ivo van Hove’s Age of Rage refocusing predominantly male narratives to consider the effects of all that war and machismo on the female characters. van Hove included a segment on the sacrifice of Iphigenia to the God of fair winds to help her father’s fleet rescue another man’s wife. Now, Elsie Yager puts the voiceless teen at the centre at a contemporary exploration on female behaviour, family and the inheritance of feminine ideals.

Iphigenia; or, the sacrifices of a young woman in nine movements sits at the intersection of film and verbatim theatre, created from the recorded testimonies of those identifying as women, projected onto the stage wall of the Hope Theatre. This real life Chorus are almost the only voices heard across the nine chapters of Iphigenia’s life, each suggesting a stage in her story from childhood to modest acceptance of her fate while reflecting on the contemporary complexities of womanhood.

From Iphigenia’s life ‘Before’ her father chose her destiny through the disappearance of Helen to marriage and hearing her fate, Yager’s interviews guide the Chorus through a series of monologues that reflect on their personal experiences growing out of family expectations as well as cultural and religious practices, social inheritance and perceptions of motherhood. The concept works really nicely, providing a structured basis around Iphigenia’s story and drawing out the debates and issues from each contributor that show how little has really changed for women.

There are positive stories of providing maternal care to a beloved niece within a LGTBQIA+ space that align with the happy freedom of the Greek heroine’s childhood. But as the nine movements unfold, the cumulative effect of the Chorus is felt more strongly as themes about sacrifice to family wishes appear in more than one narrative. Inheriting expected behaviours and characteristics often passed from mother to daughter are a common refrain, while the notion of being “socially acceptable” is repeated again and again as these women are asked to focus quite specifically on the ways in which family has shaped them.

What makes this a theatrical experience is the largely muted but expressive performance of Karen Barredo playing a modern Iphigenia, a young girl in her bedroom who grows up before our eyes. As the Chorus speaks, Barredo’s character plays with dolls, paints her nails and begins to absorb the gender norms that will shape her life. But as the tone darkens and her value as an asset changes, Barredo reflects Iphigenia’s despair, sometimes refusing to listen to the voices around her, pacing her bedroom and crying into her pillow while slowly coming to terms with her inevitable sacrifice, an ending the now-grown Iphigenia accepts with a resigned duty.

This is really interesting and meaningful theatre-making from Yager that manages to be both a treatise on the psychological inheritance of trauma imposed on all women in contemporary society and a clever way to engage with the humanity of a young mythological woman who faced many of the same challenges. The last word goes to Clytemnestra (Alice Lee), herself a product of her own maternal legacy, but there isn’t quite enough material in this addendum to satisfy the question of her culpability for her daughter’s demise. Perhaps Iphigenianeeds a companion piece where the mothers get to share their side of the story as well.

Runs until 28 January 2023