The wheelchair men arrive on stage propelling themselves with their feet and stomp and stretch their working legs, so there is no ambiguity from the start about Tadashi Suzuki's use of the furniture of disability.
The metaphor could not be clearer: only Electra, the gorgeously athletic Yoo-Jeong Byun, escapes the simply-staged strictures of this society, and that freedom brings her no happiness.
The theatrical language of the Suzuki Company of Toga is a unique and urgent blend of East and West. To most Edinburgh eyes and ears the distinct enunciation and physical poise of Oriental theatre will appear exotic, but the juxtaposition of that vocabulary with performance techniques from American stage experiments make this production, which originated almost two decades ago, still an essential experience. Even the batterie of percussion used by Midori Takada, who has been with the show all these years, is a mix of instruments from West and East.
The Japanese text may be derived from Euripides and Hofmannsthal's versions of the story, but the visual storytelling is pure Suzuki company. Chieko Naito is a truly terrifying Clytemnestra. Aki Sato-Johnson's Chrysothemis is a vision of repressed sensuality, and veteran Yoichi Takemori brings a weary despair to the role of Orestes, while Yoo-Jeong Byun has, I'm sure, brought a revitalising presence to the production with her mesmerising physicality in the title role.
But this version of the tale is chiefly about the poetry of ensemble in the company of 17. When the nurses/maids wheel away the wheelchair chorus at the end of the tale, their limbs are limp.
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