MEDEA. To 13 December.

Leeds

MEDEA
by Euripides translated by Alistair Elliot

West Yorkshire Playhouse Courtyard Theatre To 13 December 2003
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Thu 2pm & Sat 2.30pm
Audio-described 27 November 2pm, 29 November 2.30pm, 3 December
BSL Signed 1 December
After-show discussion 3 December
Runs 1hr 45min No interval

TICKETS: 0113 213 7700
www.wyp.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 24 November

Elegant, high-quality production that stays remote nearly all the time.Spacious and elegant, Ruari Murchison's set is also discomforting. Elements are isolated like Medea, the foreign princess who's put her trust in faithless husband Jason. Leaving home and family violently, she's abandoned, high and dry as the separate set elements here: a central disc, a pathway leading off through an impossibly high, impracticably narrow arch, steps hovering over a void as they mount to a door in a solid wall. Where this leads is uncertain, though it melts away finally to reveal Medea and her slaughtered children.

It's like the production: impressive (though the fine buildings have cracked surfaces) yet remote. Beautifully spoken, the performances humanise the space, though the production leaves people seated for no specific reason: accentuating a point we shouldn't think of:: that nothing seems to happen in this city.

The programme bears a quote: Emotion is Negro and reason Greek'. This may relate to the casting of, very fine, Black actors. But, by itself, the casting reduces the separation between Medea and the locals: foreign emotion and native reason.

There's certainly a contrast between the two characters who lose their tempers. Femi Elufowoju Jr's Jason tries plausibly to persuade Medea that dumping her's for her own good. After her destructive actions, his fury's easily understood.

With Tanya Moodie's Medea, fury's inextricable from pain. Her cry is heard long before she appears, almost saturating the air, accompanied by anguished music. Moodie charts Medea's calculation precisely. It's the promise of a refuge from Aegeus played by Alan Cooke, ironically, with childlike pleasure which leads her to realise she now has a way of escape as she spins her plot's final devices.

Medea's children provide the most recognisably human moments. First, it's the shock as they enter in the rich blue clothing their father's wearing in contrast to the women's neutral colours: they're already taken from their mother.

Then, their separate murders. Initially, one child survives. The Corinthian women cuddle joyfully round. Till bloodstained, knife-bearing Medea appears, arm held out to the child. There's indecision, but the mother's trusted invitation wins out and her second child joins the bloodbath.

Nurse: Jacqueline Kington
Medea/Jason's children: Jiordan Thompson, Lorenzo Thompson
Woman of Corinth: Ony Uhiara
Medea: Tanya Moodie
Woman of Corinth: Ekua Ekumah
Woman of Corinth: Julie Hewlett
Creon/Aegeus: Alan Cooke
Jason: Femi Elufowoju Jr

Director: Femi Elufowoju Jr
Designer: Ruari Murchison
Lighting: Malcolm Rippeth
Sound: Mic Pool
Music: Richard Taylor
Movement: Faroque Khan
Associate director: Susan Stern
Assistant director: Anita Franklin

2003-11-27 15:28:59