Revenge is sweet.
After the murder of her father by her mother and stepfather, a young girl takes justice into her own hands in “Electra,” a Greek tragedy by Sophocles.
The play will kick off the University’s fall 2011 Lab Theatre season. Set in the city of Argos shortly after the Trojan War, Electra and her brother Orestes seek to avenge the death of their father, Agamemnon.
“This production of ‘Electra’ highlights the timeless themes of murder and revenge,” said assistant director Ben Koucherik, a second-year MFA candidate in the University’s professional actor training program.
The play questions the “validity of revenge as a means of honorable justice or irrational self-indulgence,” according to a news release.
The action of the play comes from the inner conflicts Electra deals with as she copes with the death of her father and her intention to seek retribution.
“We have all worked incredibly hard on the piece, and it promises to be a great showcase for all of our talents in both performance and production design,” Koucherik said.
Fast-forward to World War II, and the setting for the Lab Theatre’s second play of the season becomes clear.
“Copenhagen” deals with the meeting between Danish physicist Niels Bohr and German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg in 1941. Bohr would eventually come to the United States and become involved in the Manhattan Project, while Heisenberg would join the German equivalent, the Uranium Club.
“Heisenberg was working on nuclear power under the Nazis,” said director David Coley. “It’s about this mysterious meeting in 1941, and no one remembers what it was about. It looks at why Heisenberg didn’t make the bomb for play.”
Cowan said she always thought of World War II from the viewpoint of everyone except Germany before reading the play.
“In the play, Heisenberg talks about how Germany was hit by conventional bombs and how that affected him and his family,” Cowan said. “He gives this really moving monologue about how he was walking through the streets of Berlin and his shoes caught on fire from the phosphorus. I’d never thought about it from that