Clytemnestra

Part One and Two

The fifth play in the sextet of The Fall of The House of Atreus, Clytemnestra Pts One and Two explores the process of being diminished and dismissed; when grief, love and hate is so mixed up and only the pain is enacted on; of the capability our own dangerous destructive sides being unleashed.

Plot Summary:

Part One:

After her beloved daughter's murder - orchestrated by her husband Agamemnon so that the Greek fleet could set sail to Troy - Clytemnestra has now returned to Mycenae from Aulis.

Having hallucinations - or visitations - from her dead daughter, and completely lost to grief, Clytemnestra is only saved from her sorrow by her faithful friend Aniketos, (the disguised Aegisthus, sworn enemy of the House of Atreus and Agamemnon).

Proving an efficient ruler, Clytemnestra rules Mycenae fairly - better than her husband, however, unbeknownst to her, Aegisthus has started to take his revenge on Agamemnon by trying to entice Clytemnestra into his heart and bed, not only because he has always loved Clytemnestra, but he plans to marry her and murder her remaining children by Agamemnon, so that when he marries Clytemnestra, their children will rule. As their love blossoms, they engineer both Orestes and Electra's fates and cement Clytemnestra's rule over Mycenae - all seems well until at the end of Part One, we learn Agamemnon has survived the Trojan war and is returning back to Mycenae.

Part Two:

Agamemnon has returned from war, bringing Hecuba's daughter, Cassandra, with him, and with whom he has fallen in love with.

Back in the palace, although upset by the loss of his son Orestes, Agamemnon now secretly plans to rid himself of Clytemnestra, marry Casandra and father new children with Cassandra, hoping that these new children will be a symbol of Greece and Troy joining and being intertwined after the horrors of the war.

Clytemnestra meanwhile, tries to go back to being the dutiful wife to Agamemnon, to Aegisthus horror, however, Clytemnestra once again starts to see her dead daughter, Iphigenia, who has returned to prompt Clytemnestra to revenge. As the country goes downhill under Agamemnon's disastrous leadership, and as his passion for Cassandra becomes all too obvious, Clytemnestra finally breaks and consummates her desire and love for Aegisthus and gives in to her long held and bloody revenge against Agamemnon with devastating consequences that she has no idea that she is unleashing.

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