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A ‘Clytemnestra’ With Modern Politics

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Co-adaptors Christopher DeWan and Katharine Noon revisit the House of Atreus for a revisionist look at Queen Clytemnestra’s marital malfeasance in “Clyt at Home: The Clytemnestra Project,” at Theatre of NOTE. This collaboration between Theatre of NOTE and the Ghost Road Company is never boring, but eccentricity for eccentricity’s sake occasionally derails the production’s authority.

Developed in workshop with the company, the play portrays Clytemnestra (Jacqueline Wright) not as the power-hungry schemer of myth, but as a loving wife and mother, a sort of homebody of Atreus jolted out of her domestic round by the sacrificial death of her daughter Iphigenia (Rebecca Gray). Clytemnestra’s hubby, Agamemnon (Hugo Armstrong), ostensibly burned their daughter as a propitiatory offering to the gods--but his real motive was to “spin” the unpopular Trojan conflict to his advantage, a distinction not lost upon his irate missus.

A proper political wife, Clytemnestra makes nice for the cameras while her subterranean fury builds. It’s a timely twist in the Clinton/Condit era and the evening’s most compelling theme.

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Miguel Montalvo and Lynn Odell play Electra and Orestes, respectively, Agamemnon’s loyal children, who will carry on the sanguinary standard set by Mom. This gender-bending casting, while amusing, seems arbitrary, as do certain other elements in this enterprising but muddled mix, particularly David Bickford’s bizarre original musical numbers, which are inadequately sung by the cast.

However, Noon’s otherwise acute staging, Barbara Lempel’s production design and Mark Seldis’ video segments coalesce into an entertaining if somewhat ragged whole. Wright is well-cast as Clytemnestra, a svelte Jackie O clone whose seemingly perfect life and outwardly perfect family are cursed, doomed and riotously dysfunctional.

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“Clyt at Home,” Theatre of NOTE, 1517 Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sept. 9, 16 and 23, 4 p.m. Ends Oct. 6. $12-$15. (323) 856-8611. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

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