The first level of the film shows them setting up, rehearsing, promoting and performing in fustanella this 1893 piece, a bucolic verse drama of love, betrayal and death.

Agamemnon, a Greek refugee from Asia Minor, goes to war against the Italians in 1940, joins the resistance against the Germans, and is executed by them after being betrayed by Clytemnestra and Aegisthos.

Orestes, son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, fights on the side of the leftists, avenges his father's death by killing his mother and Aegisthos.

Chrysotheme, Electra's younger sister, collaborates with the Germans, prostitutes herself during the occupation, sides with the British during liberation, and later marries an American.

To continue working he claimed he was producing a version of the Orestes myth set in the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II.

Like many of Theo Angelopoulos' films, The Travelling Players uses long, static takes combined with complex tracking shots, and beautiful landscape photography to create a surrealistic atmosphere.