Passion Runs High in ‘The Elektra Fugues’

Ruth Margraff’s “The Elektra Fugues” is a fragmented, poetic vision of history’s ultimate dysfunctional family on the eve of its collapse. In this intriguing Bottom’s Dream production at the Ivy Substation, Margraff transports Euripides’ tragedy “Electra” to America for an opera of emotional discord.

Elektra (Alice Dodd), a disenfranchised punk-rock teen, seems repellent beside her good-girl sister, Chrysothemis (Cheryl White). Their mother, Clytemnestra (Jennifer Griffin), in her trashy lounging gown, is fawned on by her lounge-lizard lover, Aegisthus (Matthew Posey).

This snarling and drunk couple murdered the father, Agamemnon (Gregg Daniel in slides and voice-overs), after his triumphant return from the Trojan War years ago. Elektra recalls a kind man, but Clytemnestra and Chrysothemis remember he sacrificed his third daughter Iphigenia (White) for favorable winds to sail to Troy. Now the exiled brother Orestes (Mike Hagiwara) covertly returns, looking to avenge his father.

Margraff originally conceived this piece as an opera, and it keeps much of the high emotion and spotlight-grabbing moments. Taking Euripides’ device of Elektra’s husband (William Mesnik), she adds another dimension: One actor plays both the husband and a classical Greek scholar deeply in love with misunderstood Elektra.

Director James Martin creates a strident chorus of vengeance that plays on cultural archetypes, making the multicultural aspect of the casting easy to accept. Martin fully exploits the ugly contortions of a family caught between love and hate, guilt and honor, as the House of Atreus is irrevocably destroyed.

BE THERE

“The Elektra Fugues,” Bottom’s Dream at Ivy Substation, 9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends March 13. $15. (310) 231-0446. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.