Reviews

Medea

Stella Duffy’s elastic and highly speakable new version of Medea tries, and largely succeeds, to make this 3,000-year-old text relevant to modern audiences.

The classical unities will always present difficulties to the modern director. If only the real action happened on stage! It is therefore inevitable that, all design and directing talents notwithstanding, any production will stand or fall on the actor playing Medea.

You can see why Nadira Janikova – better known to those in the news media as Nadira Murray, Uzbek wife of Her Majesty’s former ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray – is drawn to the story of a woman married to a foreign leader. “What country will grant me asylum?” she thunders. “A foreign wife doesn’t look quite so fine beside the elder statesman.” (A cynic might question the relevance of the word “statesman”.)

Richard Fry as Creon, Jason and Aegeus is rich casting. It’s an interesting touch to give Corinthians regional accents and Athenians the BBC voice. Jason, the hero of the Golden Fleece, becomes an East End opportunist made good. Sarah Berger too does good work in the tough role of the Nurse. Director Sarah Chew handles the chorus persuasively and creates a credible world for terrible deeds. Hannah Arendt first alerted us to the banality of evil and her point has been well taken here.

But this show is Janikova’s triumph. Constantly on stage, and with vast swathes of classical text to pick her way though, she navigates the highs and lows, the drama and the lightness, the moral complexity, with charisma and aplomb.

– Craig Singer