Review: 'Prometheus Bound' is a graceful revival at Getty Villa

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“Birdman” actress Emma Stone (center), took on Roundabout Theatre Company’s “Cabaret.” Pictured with Gayle Rankin, left, Andrea Goss, Kristin Olness, Stacey Sipowicz, Kaleigh Cronin and Jessica Pariseau. (Joan Marcus / Roundabout Theatre)

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Oscar winner Helen Mirren once again portrays Queen Elizabeth II in Peter Morgan’s play “The Audience,” directed by two-time Tony Award winner Stephen Daldry. (Johan Persson / Associated Press)

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Actress Carly Hughes and Sugarland singer Jennifer Nettles perform during a rehearsal for Broadway’s “Chicago.” (Astrid Stawiarz / Getty Images)

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Sienna Miller, center, and Alan Cumming, right, appear at the curtain call following her debut performance in Broadway’s “Cabaret.” (Greg Allen / Invision / Associated Press)

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“Nightcrawler” actor Jake Gyllenhaal, left, and Ruth Wilson stand onstage at the opening night curtain call of “Constellations” at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. (Greg Allen / Invision / Associated Press)

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Bradley Cooper, left, Alessandro Nivola and Patricia Clarkson perform in “The Elephant Man” at the Booth Theatre in New York. (Joan Marcus / Associated Press)

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“Wolverine” actor Hugh Jackman played The Man in “The River,” a play by Jez Butterworth, directed by Ian Rickson, at Circle in the Square Theatre in New York. (Richard Termine / Associated Press)

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Film actors Ewan McGregor and Maggie Gyllenhaal made their Broadway debuts Oct. 30 in Tom Stoppard’s “The Real Thing” in New York. ( Joan Marcus / Associated Press)

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James Franco, left, with Jim Norton, made his Broadway debut in “Of Mice and Men” in March.

REVIEW: ‘Of Mice and Men’ finds James Franco in CliffsNotes mode (Richard Phibbs / Associated Press)

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Four-time Oscar nominee Annette Bening is no stranger to the stage having started her acting career in theater. Above, Bening performs a compilation of four Ruth Draper vignettes in “Ruth Draper’s Monologues,” scheduled to run through May 18 at the Geffen Playhouse.

REVIEW: Annette Bening pays fine tribute in ‘Ruth Draper’s Monologues’ (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

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“CSI” alum William Petersen made his Los Angeles stage debut in this year’s “Slowgirl” at the Geffen Playhouse. (Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)

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Tom Hiddleston returned to the stage as the title character in Shakespeare’s “Coriolanus” after playing Loki in “Thor,” “The Avengers” and “Thor: The Dark World.” The production opened at the Donmar Warehouse in London on Dec. 17 to glowing reviews and continues through Feb. 13. (Johan Persson / Associated Press)

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Ethan Hawke took on the title role in the Lincoln Center Theater’s production of “Macbeth” that opened on Nov. 21, 2013, and closed Jan. 12. (T Charles Erickson / Associated Press)

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Daniel Radcliffe went from boy wizard in “Harry Potter” to baring all in a Broadway revival of Peter Shaffer’s 1973 Tony-winning play “Equus.”

The casting of the “Harry Potter” frontman as the psychologically disturbed stable boy caused a stir as the then 17-year-old would appear nude in one scene.

Radcliffe wowed critics and earned a Drama Desk nomination for his role. (Uli Weber / Associated Press)

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Jude Law, who played the title role in 2009, and most of the British cast transported the Donmar Warehouse production from the Wyndham’s Theatre in London to Broadway’s Broadhurst Theatre after a successful run. (Johan Persson / Associated Press)

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Julia Roberts made her Broadway debut in the revival of Richard Greenberg’s “Three Days of Rain,” which opened April 12, 2006. Paul Rudd, above, and Bradley Cooper also starred in the play that called for actors to play roles from two generations of family members. (Joan Marcus / Associated Press)

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Oscar winner Denzel Washington and Oscar-nominated actress Viola Davis portrayed Troy Maxson and Troy’s wife, Rose in the 2010 version of “Fences.” Their portrayals in the August Wilson play netted the pair lead actor Tony Awards. (Joan Marcus / Associated Press)

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Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman, both with impressive stage and screen credits, starred in Keith Huff’s “A Steady Rain.”

The two-person play, which cast the duo as a pair of cops, opened Sept. 29, 2009. (Joan Marcus / AP)

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Oscar-winner Al Pacino got to recite the famous “Hath not a Jew eyes” speech multiple times as Shylock in both the 2004 film and the 2010 Broadway production of “The Merchant of Venice.” (Joan Marcus / Associated Press)

By Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times Theater Critic

Sept. 6, 2013 5 AM PT

Prometheus has long been a symbol of the rebel hero, a revolutionary challenging an oppressive order. Dubbed “the patron saint of the proletariat,” he is a god who sided with mankind against the immortals, bestowing on them enlightenment and the great gift of fire, crimes for which he is punished by Zeus, the universe’s reigning tyrant at the time of the myth.

In Travis Preston’s gracefully lucid staging of Aeschylus’ “Prometheus Bound” at the Getty Villa’s outdoor Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman Theater, Prometheus is carted out on a wagon that, were he not a deathless god, might be mistaken for a bier. As played by Ron Cephas Jones, this champion of humanity, already limp with pain before being enchained to a giant 5-ton wheel, brings to mind images of Jesus at the crucifixion.

“Prometheus Bound” is rarely performed, and with good reason. An immobilized protagonist presents undeniable dramatic problems, but perhaps even more difficult are the theatrical challenges posed by a playwriting imagination that conscripts into service a chorus of ocean nymphs, a few outlandish deities, and a victimized young woman transformed into a heifer and harassed by a gadfly, all of whom drop by to pay their respects to a prisoner being tortured on a far-flung mountainside.

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Imagine the stillness of Beckett’s “Happy Days” crossed with the wildness of James Cameron’s “Avatar” and you’ll get a sense of the scale of the staging hurdles.

But the text (generally attributed to Aeschylus though questions remain) is so complexly woven and philosophically rich that it cries out for a director bold enough to meet its unorthodox demands. Preston, working with a new translation by Joel Agee that is smooth and clear without being reductive, negotiates an intelligent compromise between innovation and restraint.

His production — a collaboration between the Getty and CalArts Center for New Performance, in association with Trans Arts — is never in competition with Aeschylus’ tragedy, never experimental for experiment’s sake. A meditative rhythm, enhanced by an original jazz score by Vinny Golia and Ellen Reid, keeps the focus on the play’s religious and political depths.

The 23-foot-tall rotating steel wheel dominating Efren Delgadillo Jr.’s set design may sound gimmicky, but the machinery is conservatively employed. Its presence is more sculptural than athletic. (Cirque du Soleil-style acrobatics aren’t part of the equation.) This scenic approach taken by Preston, dean of the CalArts School of Theater and artistic director of the CalArts Center for New Performance, suits a play that is static on the surface yet nonetheless coursing with revelations.

“Prometheus Bound” harks back to an older style of tragedy than the one endorsed by Aristotle’s “Poetics.” There’s drama, but as often with Aeschylus, it’s a matter of intensification of theme. The protagonist’s growing conviction in the righteousness of his resistance to Zeus’ tyranny substitutes for rising action.

The plot, lyrically handled, revolves around a series of exchanges between Prometheus and his visitors. The chorus of ocean daughters, who speak, sing and move in unison, plead for stories. Full of sympathy, they want to know everything Prometheus knows. “Tell us, unless telling adds to your pain” is their refrain.

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Prometheus obliges them. He will not, however, relent in his defiance of the current brutal Olympian regime. When Okeanos (Joseph Kamal), the father of the chorus, preaches the wisdom of political expediency, Prometheus only becomes more adamant.

Prometheus’ encounter with Io (an emotionally supercharged Mirjana Jokovic), the innocent lass whose life was derailed by Zeus’ lust, takes us inside the inner workings of his mind. The fates of these victims of Zeus are entwined. It’s a complicated tale but suffice it to say that Prometheus, whose name is derived from the Greek word meaning forethought, sees far into the future and knows that the arc of the moral universe is bending infinitesimally toward justice.

This faith sustains him when Hermes (Michael Blackman) races in with more threats from Zeus. Prometheus’ suffering will be excruciating, but it won’t be for naught. No wonder he has come to epitomize, despite the fanaticism of his character, the courageous nobility of principled dissent.

Jones’ performance lets you feel the emotional weight of Prometheus’ position. He speaks less in anger than in weary determination. The cost of his agonizing ordeal isn’t skimped over.

For Aeschylus, wisdom doesn’t replace suffering. It can, however, accompany it. There’s pain and there’s progress. This double reality is captured in Jones’ portrayal of a character who is indeed larger than the drama containing him. (Don’t blame Aeschylus: “Prometheus Bound” is the only surviving play in what may have been a trilogy.)

The production doesn’t crack the conundrum of the chorus. The young women assuming these impossibly ethereal roles, which may be more sea bird than sea maiden, haven’t yet found a tone that harmonizes with the gravity of Prometheus’ predicament, and Mira Kingsley’s choreography for them is still a work in progress.

This “Prometheus” may not be the most radical production in the Getty Villa’s annual outdoor staging of an ancient classic, but it is one of the clearest and, notwithstanding a few shaky spots, the most theatrically assured. Best of all, it establishes a dialogue between the world of 5th century B.C. Athens and our own. Truly, this is a revival.

charles.mcnulty@latimes.com

‘Prometheus Bound’

Where: Getty Villa’s Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman Theater, 17985 Pacific Coast Highway, Pacific Palisades

When: 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays. Ends Sept. 28.

Tickets: $42

Contact: (310) 440-7300 or https://www.getty.edu

Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes