Under Development
I'll never be able to watch Jason and the Argonauts on the telly
in quite the same light.
According to Euripides, Jason's wife, Medea, helped capture the Golden Fleece and bore him two lovely lads. But how did he repay her? By choosing another wife. And how did Medea repay him? I can barely bring myself to tell you.
As it is, I recommend you discover for yourself the hellish fury of a woman scorned in Caroline Reader's clear, contemporised adaptation of this Greek tragedy. After all, without Euripides, there might not have been Shakespeare, and it's not often that we get the chance to see plays that defined and shaped theatre.
Against a simple, atmospheric, mist-strewn set, we witness a tale of "blood-splattered revenge" by an all-seeing chorus, who are uniformly sound, though ironically all eight of them are more focused individually than as a group.
Stephanie Collyer is a strong, suitably empowered Medea - "a woman who knows her own mind" - yet I feel she needs to seethe with even more rage and resentment as "the wheels of vengeance begin to turn". As the "treacherous" Jason, Alan Smith appears at first like a Co-op version of Indiana Jones, but then impresses greatly as a charming snake and, eventually, a tortured, tragic father. His scene with Medea's concerned nurse, played by the ever-expressive Lorna Harrington, her blood-drenched hands signifying appalling tragedy, is riveting; as is the moment where Jason's new young wife, played by Laura Smith, dies a horrible, terror- stricken death.
We didn't need the chorus to remind us that "each vein in her head pulsed with poison"; Laura's performance conveyed it all in one of the most remarkable cameos I've ever seen on a local stage. I wondered if this ancient tragedy would work with a modern setting, but the sight of Medea's seemingly far-fetched and primal act of vengeance troublingly reminded me of a similarly horrifying story laid out in the tabloids only recently. Not a bundle of laughs, then, but worth staging, and certainly illuminating for all students of drama. So where were they?
Ashleigh Franklin
Derby Evening Telegraph, 22nd October 2003