Medea

by Euripides in a new version by Rachel Cusk

seen at the Almeida Theatre on 19 October 2015

This is the third and final production in the Almeida GreeK season (following 'Oresteia' reviewed in June 2015 and 'Bakkhai' reviewed in August 2015). It is directed by Rupert Goold and designed by Ian MacNeil, and features Kate Fleetwood as Medea, Justin Salinger as Jason, Amanda Boxer as the Nurse, Michele Austin as the Cleaner, Andy de la Tour as Creon and a Tutor, and Richard Cant as Aegeus, with a chorus of five women, and two young boys, the sons of Medea and Jason.

The play is set in an opulent house - we see two levels but there are also stairs going down out of sight - in which Medea, a freelance writer, is living with her sons not long after (it seems) Jason has left her for a younger woman. The house and its contents, of course, become part of the battleground of the now alienated couple; 'equal shares' are a pious fraud in such a situation. 

But the play opens with a long monologue by the Nurse epitomising the conservative views of an older conventional woman baffled by the wilful behaviour of a modern feminist. Though it is not Medea's mother speaking, one can imagine the claustrophobic atmosphere that would cause a determined girl to run her life differently.

Underscoring Medea's isolation even further is the chorus of five wealthy young middle-class mothers, so wrapped up in their safe world of baby-groups and idle gossip that they seem to be mouthing nothing but platitudes. When their attention turns to Medea, it is judgemental, scornful and utterly unsympathetic. She, for her part, has no time for them either.

Kate Fleetwood gives a coruscating performance as the enraged deserted wife, barely controlling her anger and frustration as she tries to juggle motherhood with writing, and spiralling into the most raw and blistering arguments with Jason whenever he phones her. These rows, with both of them shouting down mobile phones while on stage together, are explosive, wounding and exhausting - brilliantly acted by both Fleetwood and Salinger.

The tensions of the original, where Medea's foreign birth and unwomanly strength of purpose and character make her the target of Jason's and Creon's disdain, and make it difficult even for Aegeus to remain sympathetic, are cleverly transposed into the modern situation in which Creon can blacklist her from her publishers, while Aegeus is only queasily supportive because he has an eye on his own prospects. At the same time, there is an unflinching examination of the damage caused by the breakdown of a marriage, where words are weapons and no holds are barred. Interestingly, the children have a more vocal role than in the original play; they are baffled by the emotional currents engulfing them but add salt to the wounds by the directness of their comments and complaints.

The notorious problem with Medea in legend is her preparedness to murder her children; here, with explicit talk between Medea and her Brazilian cleaner about such a case occurring in Brazil, and Medea's own increasing volatility and desperation, we expect the worst and wonder how it will affect our overall assessment of the piece. Unfortunately, the issue is fudged, with a plausible device in modern terms that drains the dramatic tension quite badly. 

It is now clear that in the Almeida Greeks season, the idea was not to perform the Greek plays themselves, but rather to re-interpret them for the contemporary world. It is beside the point, then, to criticise the departures from the originals as 'unfaithful'. The criticism can only apply to whether these 'new versions' are successful in their own right. They have all provided gripping and provocative drama, but both 'Oresteia' and 'Medea', which strayed further from their originals than did 'Bakkhai', showed some structural weaknesses as a result. Recasting 'Oresteia' as an investigation of Orestes' personal trauma seemed at odds with the brilliant evocation of the family we saw in the imported Iphigenia story. Here in 'Medea', the acute observation of modern domestic disintegration somehow lost its shocking intensity because the modern Medea did not in the end go to the extreme of her forebear. Though the words uttered were certainly weapons, they were perhaps not quite enough.