What Simon Stone has done is to turn much of this tale of intergenerational trauma into comedy with lines which the audience find very amusing.  He has chosen not to tell the tale with a single timeline but to chop in and out, backwards and forwards which doesn’t add to the clarity.  Lizzie Clachan’s set means the Sevenoaks house is seen through closed glass windows, the actors have to be miked up and on press night there was some vocal distortion evident. This set makes us eavesdroppers on this family’s bloody tragedy whilst also distancing the audience.

The first scene is the Middleton family (an unnecessarily familar name with no relevance whatsoever) getting ready for the Birthday Party. It is here that Christopher Middleton remarks that, “Bollinger is fit for the servants!” emphasizing his upper class attitudes.  Great laughter from the audience.  Rosie Sheehy as Alice is a very interesting actress here conveying the complexity of Electra’s character.  There is a scene where Montie describes flying over New York but I’m not sure of the significance of this.  Again breaking the time line we come forward to Christopher and Montie divorced, but meeting for dinner together with Jerome who is now married to Montie, and Chandra [Cassandra] (Rakhee Thakrar) full of acrimony and feeling a little like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolff.  The murder of Christopher in a bath is staged to be passed off as suicide and Jerome is discovered dead covered in blood at night in the bathroom.

Towards the end of the play, scenes with Augie are more confusing with a sexual scene with Jerome’s son Lorenzo [Aletus] (Archie Madekwe) which I cannot find any Greek basis for.  There is no resolution and little idea of the Eumenides which are such an important part of punishing Orestes for matricide.  Orestes’ plight of avenging his father by killing his mother feels submerged.  The Anglo- Saxon figure at the end is a baffling attempt at connecting Greek history with English history at that time. What is missing from Simon Stones’ version is the part played by the gods in this bloody tale of suburban murder which for me doesn’t match up to the original.