THEATER REVIEW / ‘THE HOUSE OF ATREUS’ : Modern for 459 BC : Three plays of Aeschylus’ ‘Orestiad’ are condensed into one evening, giving ample opportunity to ponder man’s divided nature.

A metal cart filled with costumes is wheeled onto center stage.

In full view of the audience, a youthful cast in modern dress dives into the pile, donning robes, scarves and flowing fabrics that vaguely suggest the garments of ancient Greece.

The illusion is never complete, however--blue jeans, ties and T-shirts poking through tunics are a far cry from the ritualized masks from which the original cast bellowed Aeschylus’ verse to enormous amphitheaters.

The UC Santa Barbara Dramatic Arts department production of “The House of Atreus” is scaled instead for an intimate experimental theater audience.

The eclectic costuming is only one of many constant reminders of the contemporary context we cannot escape when viewing a work written in 459 BC.

In keeping with the stark imagery in the dialogue, Jay Michael Jagim’s set is hard metal and sharp angles, bordered in cloth curtains that are incrementally ripped down in the play’s bloodiest moments.

And there are plenty of those in a cycle of family betrayal, murder and vengeance that makes modern soap opera dynasties seem docile by comparison.

Director Peter Lackner based his production on John Lewin’s contemporary adaptation of Aeschylus’ “Orestiad,” though parts of other translations were also incorporated.

Condensing the “Orestiad’s” three plays into a single evening gives us ample opportunity to ponder the divided nature of mankind, where “One chamber of the human heart/Holds pride and strength within,/The next, a mad, sick animal/And the wall between is thin.”

First we witness the return of victorious Agamemnon from the siege of Troy, where he’s promptly murdered in his bath by his wife Clytemnestra (Wendy Gough) and her lover Aegisthus (K. Michael Healey).

In the middle portion, Orestes (a particularly sympathetic and effective Jason Cottle) avenges his father’s death by killing the treacherous pair.

But moral ambiguity abounds at every turn--Clytemnestra claims she killed Agamemnon to avenge his sacrifice of their daughter Iphegenia in return for a favorable wind to Troy.

And even the calculating Aegisthus had a grudge to settle--Agamemnon’s father, Atreus, had served Aegisthus’ father his two elder sons in a monstrous feast.

Thus the cycle of bloodletting stretches back through history and threatens to continue indefinitely, as the Furies unleashed by his mother’s dying curse drive Orestes to near madness.

It takes the ultimate intervention of the Olympian deities Apollo and Athena (portrayed by multiple actors who speak their dialogue sometimes in unison, sometimes alternating the lines to indicate confusion and conflict even in the almighty gods).

If director Lackner’s relentless attempt to render his staging of Aeschylus’ trilogy in a modern frame of reference borders at times on the peculiar, his choices have some solid foundations.

For the theater of Miller, O’Neill, Williams and Mamet owes more than a formulaic debt to its Greek ancestry--there is also a kinship born of social disintegration to contend with.

Greek tragedy, like our own, occurs outside a stable, collective order where fundamental assumptions are called into question.

And questioning absolutes is an elemental concern in “The House of Atreus,” which concludes with a mythical first jury trial.

Athena, the presiding goddess of wisdom, proclaims a new era in which conflicts can now be resolved through reason.

If only it were true.

* WHERE AND WHEN

“The House of Atreus.” Performed at 8 tonight through Saturday (additional Saturday matinee at 2 p.m.) at UC Santa Barbara Studio Theatre. Running time is three hours. Tickets are $10. For reservations or further information call 893-3535.