Medea – Everyman Theatre, Liverpool

Writer: Euripides

Translator: Tom Paulin

Music: Barbara Hockaday

Director: Barrie Rutter

Reviewer: Jane Dawson

The Public Reviews Rating:

A passionate tale of betrayal and revenge revisited here by Northern Broadsides, a company with a richly deserved reputation for making the classics accessible. The adaptation is by lyrical poet, Tom Paulin. A marriage made in heaven – so why didn’t it work? It was all slightly out of kilter, making for an uncomfortable experience.

All the action – the backstory (Jason, Argo, Golden Fleece, “plunder(ing)” of Medea), the violent death of Jason’s new bride, the brutal murder of Jason and Medea’s children – takes place off stage and is related to the audience in a series of monologues. The passion was in the words, but I just didn’t feel it. An immigrant, torn away from her own country, no friends or family, abandoned by the love of her life for a younger model, discriminated against (as a woman and as a “foreigner”) but I felt no empathy whatever with Medea and her dreadful plight.

Nina Kristofferson as Medea was committed to her character’s passion for destruction, but her constant sneer made it all rather trivial. The three woman chorus provided social commentary and helped keep it all on track, but also provided far too much distraction. Complete with harmonicas and saxophone, they occasionally launched into blues songs (verging on country) – this and the stilted pronouncements from King Creon and Jason (Barrie Rutter and Andrew Pollard) leaned towards the comedic.

The design, on first view, was really interesting. Emma Wee’s sculptural centrepiece was stunning, echoing Jason’s famed sea voyage to claim the Golden Fleece, but it played no part until the end of the play when it turned into a chariot for Medea to escape from Corinth. These scenes provided the worst and best moments of the production. First, Medea was secured in the chariot with a rope by a stage hand – all of three feet off the staging, was this really necessary?

Then, the shocking deaths of her two young children were represented by two pairs of sandals, complete with blue ribbons – there was a general, confused, murmur from the audience (what were they?). This device just didn’t work. It wasn’t shocking, it wasn’t sad – if anything it was odd. But the final moment was stunningly beautiful, as a tragically triumphant Medea and distraught and destroyed Jason are picked out in spotlight as the lighting fades around them (lighting by Julie Washington).

A final word about Tom Paulin’s script. It was beautifully lyrical at times, particularly through Medea’s passionate speeches, but possibly to keep it to a cast of eight and a running of time of 80 minutes, it was just too spare.

For me, this was a disappointing evening at the Everyman. That said, it was an almost full house (packed with students) that responded extremely positively.