THE IPHIGENIA QUARTET

THE IPHIGENIA QUARTET
GATE THEATRE NOTTING HILL 

11 Pembridge Road Notting Hill Gate
London W11 3HQ
Box office:

020 7229 0706*


Four plays over two nights presenting a multi-dimensional tragedy, seen from a variety of angles exploring fundamental issues of violence, sacrifice, and civic duty, vanity, motherhood and the predicament of women in the face of male violence. All this concerning events that occurred more than 2000 years ago. Nobody could ever accuse the Gate of lacking ambition. That it all works so powerfully is a credit to the cast who manage to fully convey the immediacy and terrible implications of the crisis faced by the primary protagonists, Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, and Iphigenia.
Andrew French 

“I am a good man in a dreadful situation….” The drunken Agamemnon declares in the first of the four plays, Agamemnon.
“Is that ‘the line’ you’ll use?” Clytemnestra, his wife shoots back as she dissects his self-image with home truths about as devastating as home truths come. Indeed, for me, it was the performance of Andrew French as the drunken self-pitying Agamemnon and Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Clytemnestra, that provided the core of the two nights’ performances.

French, as Agamemnon, a giant presence dominating the stage, though a giant suddenly exposed to full the scale of his own fragility and weakness. Whilst Sharon Duncan-Brewster whose sassy self-confident Clytemnestra we see suddenly transformed, as she discovers her husband’s true intentions, and the painful mask she has worn for so long slips from her face. To descend into clichĆ©, this was going to be a hard act to follow. And so it proved, but I will return to this shortly.
On the second night in Iphigenia, Agamemnon, now played by Anthony Barclay, presents as a far less tortured figure, a brutal wife beater, intent on dominating his family and the wider world. Clytemnestra, Suzie Trayling, now much more fragile, nervy, a woman on the edge, seeking to placate him. Iphigenia played by Shannon Tarbet, a moody, sulking anorexic teenager who has come to despise her own mother.
Shannon Tarbet
 As the Drama plays out however it is Iphigenia who faces, clearly and coldly, the reality of the predicament they now confront, in the process she demolishes the pomposity of Achilles, Dwane Walcott, the temporizing of her mother and the hypocrisy of Agamemnon. That the speech Agamemnon then goes on to make to the assembled Athenian Polis: -

“And then people of Greece a miracle…”

Sounds as phony as a Hallmark greetings card is in no small part due to the passionate authenticity of Iphigenia’s words that preceded it.
Clytemnestra and Chorus both seek to connect the plays with contemporary life by lifting them firstly  from the academic and scholarly and then from the passivity of ‘spectacle.’ Both plays about plays poke and prod and provide stimulus for wider discussion. However, for this spectator, it was the play that was the thing in which my conscience was caught.
It would be seriously remiss of me not to mention Nigel Barrett, as Agamemnon’s singularly unpleasant brother, Menelaus and Louise McMenemy as the ‘only obeying orders,’ Messenger. They both powerfully conveyed  the duplicity and treachery into which the protagonists had sunk.
To fully achieve the full impact all four plays need to be seen; two memorable nights, one highly charged drama.


*Saturday 30 April 3:00pm - Agamemnon & Clytemnestra
Saturday 30 April 7:30pm - Iphigenia & Chorus

Monday 02 May 7:30pm - Agamemnon & Clytemnestra
Tuesday 03 May 7pm (Press Night) - Agamemnon & Clytemnestra and Iphigenia & Chorus
Wednesday 04 May 7:30pm - Iphigenia & Chorus
Thursday 05 May 7:30pm - Agamemnon & Clytemnestra
Friday 06 May 7:30pm - Iphigenia & Chorus
Saturday 07 May 3pm - Iphigenia & Chorus
Saturday 07 May 7:30pm - Agamemnon & Clytemnestra

Monday 09 May 7:30pm - Agamemnon & Clytemnestra
Tuesday 10 May 7:30pm (Young People's Night) - Iphigenia & Chorus
Wednesday 11 May 3pm - Agamemnon & Clytemnestra
Wednesday 11 May 7:30pm - Iphigenia & Chorus
Thursday 12 May 7:30pm - Agamemnon & Clytemnestra
Friday 13 May 7:30pm - Iphigenia & Chorus
Saturday 14 May 3pm - Agamemnon & Clytemnestra
Saturday 14 May 7:30pm - Iphigenia & Chorus

Monday 16 May 7:30pm - Iphigenia & Chorus
Tuesday 17 May 7:30pm - Agamemnon & Clytemnestra
Wednesday 18 May 3pm (Captioned Performance) - Iphigenia & Chorus
Wednesday 18 May 7:30pm (Captioned Performance) - Agamemnon & Clytemnestra
Thursday 19 May 7:30pm  - Iphigenia & Chorus
Friday 20 May 7:30pm - Agamemnon & Clytemnestra
Saturday 21 May 3pm - Iphigenia & Chorus
Saturday 21 May 7:30pm - Agamemnon & Clytemnestra

£20 full price.
£15 concessions (senior, student, unwaged, access, union members). There are a limited amount of concessions per performance.
£10 preview and matinee performances.


The Gate is offering a discount to all customers wanting to see all four plays. Book to see Agamemnon & Clytemnestra and Iphigenia & Chorus in the same transaction at the box office online, over the phone or in person for £30 tickets (£25 concession) to see all of The Iphigenia Quartet.

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