Desire Under the Elms, Lyric Hammersmith, London
Lyric Hammersmith, London: "Purdy" - the idiomatic word glints repeatedly through O'Neill's 1924 play, which takes its central idea - an adulterous affair between a beautiful temptress and her stepson - from Euripides' Hippolytus. The sunrise is "purdy", Ephraim Cabot's New England farm is "purdy", and his new young wife Abbie is not only "purdy" but sexuall…