Archive for August 24th, 2009
Medea at the London Free Theatre Festival
Greek tragedy has an extremely public dimension which can be very difficult to imagine today. Performances were in the open air, in front of the entire citizenry, generally as part of a religious or public festival. In Athens, the home of Western drama, public performance was intrinsically linked to the concept of democracy during the period in which it flourished.
What better location is there, then, to put on a dramatic performance of one of the most famous plays in Greek drama, than in the very public, semi-political performance space at More London, the Scoop, next to City Hall.
The play itself is arguably one of the most accessible of Greek drama, and the company have updated it masterfully. With a fantastic, passionate new translation from Stella Duffy which maintains the play’s direct emotionality as well as the poetry of its language, it feels as fresh as ever, and the crucial context of ‘us and them’ comes through strongly. Re-inventing the chorus as a horde of duplicitious journalists sounded like a terrible idea, but I needn’t have worried: it was handled wonderfully, and was a clever way to emphasise the importance of reputation and public action.
The acting was very good, with some well-judged humour which didn’t detract from the gravity of the piece. Jason and Medea were both given the chance to argue their case without vilification as the audience’s empathy shifts uneasily between them throughout the performance. Jason’s doublespeak was spot-on, while Medea bubbled with rage throughout.
If there is a criticism to be made, it is that the company makes slightly overenthusiastic use of the rather sparse set. Characters jump in and out of the main action in a slightly disconcerting way, and the points where characters are seated in the audience were a little offputting, and created a confusing grey area around who was supposed to be part of the action at that time.
That minor quibble aside, I would thoroughly recommend anyone to head down to the Scoop for this fantastic free event. I cannot imagine a better use for the location than a festival of free classical drama in the middle of the summer, with a beer tent and gastro-pub style roast potatoes, no less. Would be 4 stars if I’d paid, but it’s an unmissable 5 stars for free – particularly if you’ve never seen Greek drama before.
(Do also check out the children’s performance of Jason and the Argonauts beforehand. It looked great, though I wonder how many of the parents who chose to keep their kids on for the Medea performance knew what was going to happen in the latter.)
