ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the Benson Translating Classical Plays on Benson, 'Mushri' and the first English Oresteia. The significant document is a 'programme', the day and month of which are listed, but not the year. The chapter shows that a production by Benson was indeed the first English Oresteia, but that the document in question refers not to 1885, but to 1904, and that this 1904 production was a touring version of the performance that Benson first produced at Stratford-on-Avon earlier that year. Hall and Macintosh also pinpoint what they identify as the first full production of The Oresteia in English from the company of Frank Benson in 1885. Frank Benson arrived at Oxford University in 1879, from Winchester public school, to read classics at New College, the destination of many ex-Winchester boys at the time. The Benson bill at Cambridge identifies virtually the same cast and credits as the 1904 Stratford production of The Orestean Trilogy.
