Theater: Heroes, Gods & Women

Electro (by Sophocles) has one of those scenes of naked emotional intensity that have been missing on the stage since Olivier gave his howl of self-recognition as Oedipus. It comes when Electra, played by Aspassia Papathanassiou, sees the urn that supposedly contains the ashes of her brother Orestes. She drops where she stands with a wild animal cry; she clutches at the urn, cradles and rocks it in entwining arms, spasmodically tries to breathe it back to life with words of love, smothers it with the salty, sightless kisses of tears, the strangulated...

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