By Jackie Demaline
The Cincinnati Enquirer

College-Conservatory of Music's drama department riffs Sophocles' Elektra (final performance at 2:30 p.m. Sunday) at lightning speed and with impressive results.

Drama students invariably rise to the occasion under the direction of Nick Mangano, who brings out muscular and creates memorable stage imagery with equal expertise.

This adaptation, from 1949 by Ezra Pound, is rich with that American's poet distinctive language, which, a half-century later, gets some new, modern rhythms (including rap) and accents from Mangano and company to contribute to a new millennium interpretation.

Elektra, played with quaking passion by Allison Sell, is a role model for Hamlet - a princess instead of a prince, but with similar problems. Mother and her henchman/lover have murdered her husband and Elektra is bent on both grieving openly - lest anyone forget - and seeing the crime avenged. A mere woman, she has been patiently awaiting the return of brother Orestes (Ben Zelinski) to see to bloody revenge.

As this is Greek tragedy, her plans don't fall neatly into place.

In keeping with Pound's adaptation, Mangano gives Elektra a modern interpretation in a setting somewhere between a museum installation and what one might imagine to be the aftermath of World.com - a sterile wasteland of mausoleum-like marble and mountains of computer screens where video images (designed by Richard Cawood) play on a huge diagonal window.

Anchored by a powerful set design by faculty member Mark Halpin - for all its spatial grandeur, there's a feeling of entrapment to this "throne room" that feels like a tomb - the student design team does first-rate work.

Costumer Lynne DeLong Goodwin puts Elektra in a filthy black slip, her weaker sister Chrysothemis (Julianna Bloodgood) in a Hullabaloo metallic blue mini-dress and brother Orestes in Marlboro Man rig. It sounds mis-matched, but it works - this is a world of chaos, after all.

There's equally fine work from lighting designer Lorna Darelius, sound designer Eun-Jin Cho and make-up designer Leah Loukas, whose work contributes enormously as Elektra powers toward its bloody ending not even 90 minutes after it's begun.

Sell's big emotions as Elektra don't outpace the rest of the cast. She has a most worthy opponent in mother Klytemnestra. Derek Hake, in a gender-bending turn, does the most with a small role, androgynous in a chilly silver pant suit, very much the lady who lunches on martinis (and her dead husband's vital organs.)

There's also good work from Eric Solomon, who pitches himself into the "Old Prospector" role as cowboy Orestes' sidekick and Daniel Wisler as Klytemnestra's partner in crime.

Elektra, 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Patricia Corbett Theater, CCM, University of Cincinnati, 556-4183.

E-mail jdemaline@enquirer.com