Elise Stone plays the title role in "Medea" at
Jean Cocteau Repertory, directed by Eve
Adamson. (Photo: Jonathan Slaff)

Hello again!

So I was researching other productions of "Medea" and I came across this review for a production at the Bouwerie Lane Theatre. The director, Eve Adamson, had directed the Anouilh version (which I am enarmoured with) and, when approaching the Euripides version, found it so dark that she was "almost afraid to go there." I can understand that trepidation. On the surface, it is a horrifying story of easily unlikable inhuman-seeming characters. It takes a degree of choice and subtly to make the story approachable. Anouilh seems to have made his version all about the maelstrom of love; Medea and Jason may be terrible people, but their humanity is revealed in their heartbreak. Euripides' however doesn't give you that entry point in quite the same way. He seems to resolve the horrible action with the deus ex machina convention--Medea essentially assumes her holy get-out-of-jail-free-card as well as a chariot and dragons and says that it was divine justice for oath-breaking. One of the things that Adamson and Elise Stone (who played Medea) talk about in the review is the idea that there are continued options for happy endings, and each time something goes just wrong enough. I think there is something to that. Creon, Jason, and Medea all have multiple roads before them and it is their collective emotional choices that lead to the ultimate terror. Of course, Medea is still responsible in a larger she-was-the-one-with-the-knife kind of way. I am reminded of Anouilh's version where Medea will be silent for a moment and then start screaming. There is an invitation to play the choice; that moment where she is thinking and weighing. And then of course she explodes.

Anyway if you're interested, check out the review here: http://www.nytheatre-wire.com/medea00.htm

Cheers!

Matt