Iphigenia in Aulis @ Washington Ensemble Theatre
8pm Thurs-Mon, through June 11; Tickets $18 general/$10 students, seniors

Ellen McLaughlin's "meditation on feminism," Iphigenia and Other Daughters is an adaptation of three Greek plays. (The Chamber Theater just did the complete version, as it happens.) WET has taken the portion based on Iphigenia in Aulis (a 5-page section), and created a 50-minute performance. (We suspected it was a feminist reading because none of the men onstage got a monologue.) Because taste can play such a big part in what resonates and what doesn't, we'll just admit it wasn't our thing up front.

Partly this is due to our having no idea what was going on. Here's some explanatory copy:

Arriving in a windless place filled with idle soldiers, Iphigenia searches for signs of the marriage she has been promised. Yet her purpose here is quite different than anything she had imagined. A secret is kept in Aulis, and as the men grow restless waiting for war, Iphigenia makes her ascension to the altar and to the revelation of her epic destiny.

McLaughlin's version -- while foregrounding the relationship between mom and daughter -- removes the context along with the men (Agamemnon, Menelaus, Achilles). That ambiguity extends to the program, which lists the performers but not which role they play. We're reasonably certain Rhonda Soikowski and Elise Hunt were Queen Clytemnestra and her daughter Iphigenia, or vice versa. We still have no idea what Mikano Fukaya was doing there.

It's a triumph of atmosphere over narrative: the two women (and Mikano) make their journey, noting that they've been called by Agamemnon to Aulis because Iphigenia is going to marry. They're short on good intel, but they do know it's a windless place. They repeat that. They climb up steep trails (the backs of Tim Gouran, Aaron LaPlante, Taylor Maxwell), and arrive at camp, which is tensely, ominously masculine (there's a sort of martial arts we're-standing-watch moment). It begins to sink in that all's not right. There's loud stamping, a deer is sacrificed. Foreshadowing? You bet your ass.

What works here is how out-of-the-loop the women are, how frustrating it is, the feeling of something momentous happening but not knowing quite what. It's also true that the choreography is compelling enough to take a starring role, watchable for its own wordless sake, which would make Matt Starritt's sound design the perfectly matched co-star.

Yet there's very little actual drama: you don't "get to know" anyone or fully understand what's happening or what's at stake -- it's more like seeing only the back side of a tapestry's illustration of history, the loose threads. It may be revealing, but by itself it's not a big draw.

Photo: Rhonda Soikowski, Elise Hunt and Mikano Fukaya: by Victoria Lahti