Girl on an Altar

by Marina Carr

A sinister night.
Evil and edge in the air.
What are they celebrating?

Clytemnestra’s world is torn apart when Agamemnon sacrifices their daughter for the sake of war. Ten years later, the couple are reunited. What follows is a dangerous battle fuelled by love, grief and power.

Marina Carr’s adaptation of the infamous Greek myth brings Clytemnestra’s story to the fore and asks if it is possible to forgive the unforgivable.

He turns to me in hall one evening, wine on him, sentimental. There is nothing I would not do to have your good opinion again, he says.

Girl on an Altar opened at the Kiln Theatre, London, in May 2022.

Genres: Plays, Mythology, Fiction, Retellings

80 pages, Paperback

Published November 8, 2022

About the author

Marina Carr was brought up in County Offaly. A graduate of University College Dublin, she has written extensively for the theatre. She has taught at Villanova, Princeton, and currently teaches in the School of English, Dublin City University. Awards include the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the Macaulay Fellowship, the E. M. Forster Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Wyndham Campbell Prize. She lives in Dublin with her husband and four children.

Reviews

[gremlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

goes extremely hard i must admit

[Maggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hey Google, how do I go back in time to May 2022 so that I have the possibility to see David Walmsley "stripped to the waist"

[lilith · Rating 3 out of 5]

some interesting stuff, but it ultimately fell flat for me. i think i’d like to see it performed, though.

“I crawl into bed, my ghost child beside me. I dread the nights because she comes to torture me with her eyes of muck and the blood spilling from the gash to her throat as if it was cut a second ago. And her fury, you'd think it would split the walls as she howls out the injustice, that I am still here and will not come to her though she has begged me, that she will wait no longer, that she will come to me. And I believe none of these things and still they happen.”

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Approached with some caution as I really did not enjoy Portia Coughlin, but i thought this was an excellent retelling of Clytemnestra's story - along with the others bound up in the House of Atreus. Wonderful language, poetic but not bound in verse, and some perceptive recognition of what these people were rather than the gilded view we have through the stories and plays that survived

[laura moon · Rating 3 out of 5]

el final es lo que lo ha salvado para mi, bastante denso

[Karol Nayeli · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75

[Pablo López · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vi un montaje de esta obra hace poco más de un año que me dio la impresión de ser un mal texto. Qué equivocado estuve.

[sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

moderna rielaborazione dell'agamennone di eschilo che ho avuto l'opportunità di analizzare per il mio esame di analisi critica del primo semestre di uni in irlanda.
è un'opera cruda ma che al contempo maschera molto agli occhi del pubblico, e volutamente femminista; il ruolo della donna, spesso vista nelle tragedie greche come portatrice di sciagura, qua viene messo in primo piano. clitennestra non è aiutata da egisto nella sua vendetta contro il marito, ma, nonostante le premesse di metà spettacolo, è in grado di prendere in mano le redini della situazione. cassandra invece viene riportata come parte dell'emotivo flusso corale di coscienza, ma non rappresenta causa o un'annunciatrice di malaugurio in modo così viscerale.
un altro aspetto interessante è come si cerchi di mantenere un lato umano in agamennone. la regola fondamentale del teatro è non giustificare mai la 'cattiveria' solo come tale, ma dare un senso anche al più barbaro della scena, e marina carr ci riesce perfettamente.
moooolto interessante la struttura dei monologhi e delle battute con questa duplicità personaggio/narratore per mascherare dettagli scabrosi e darci un insight sull'influenza mutuale dei personaggi nella storia e sulla loro psicologia.
avrei altro da dire, ma mi fa già male la mano e ho un assignment da terminare, dunque concludo qua.
quattro stelline solo perché in alcuni punti risultava lentino, ma in generale uno dei lavori contemporanei più interessanti mai affrontati da quando studio teatro.