David Morrissey in The Oresteia [Johan Persson]

SIMON Stone reimagines Aeschylus’s trilogy, The Oresteia, giving it a contemporary setting, though its themes of betrayal, murder and vengeance remain.

Twins Alice (Rosie Sheehy) and Isobel (Sheehy) are about to celebrate their 21st birthday. Their mother, Montie (Mary-Louise Parker), is preparing food in the kitchen; their father, Christopher (David Morrissey), is sloping off to work on a Saturday.

When his brother Melville (Lloyd Hutchinson), a foul-mouthed bully, arrives at their opulent Sevenoaks home, the family begins to implode.

The brothers run a company, Middletech, which deals in the arms trade. But Christopher has defrauded the shareholders and is over a million in debt. Middletech, it transpires, also supplied military equipment that killed civilians in Syria and Chechnya. Isobel, absent from the gathering, is busy protesting outside the company’s offices with Peace Alliance.

Stone, who also directs, plays with time, so we seamlessly track back and forth between 2015 and today, as we watch the gradual unravelling of the third sibling, Augie (Tom Glynn-Carney).

There’s a lot of scene-building to establish their dynamics. In the middle section, Montie is with Jerome (John Macmillan), a cousin of her husband’s, while Christopher’s new partner is Chandra (Rakhee Thakrar).

The cast set a ferocious pace – in previews it  was running at over four hours, now it’s 3 hours 35 minutes with two intervals.

The play broadens out from a family tragedy to the world stage, reminding us of the brutality and futility of war.

The production is staged in Lizzie Clachan’s stunning revolving two-storey glass house, which becomes a prison for the family. The audience can see all the action as it moves from room to room, becoming judge and jury on this doomed family.

It’s a compelling drama with a magnificent cast.

Until September 19
bridgetheatre.co.uk