The National Theatre create more event theatre with this grandest, and horrifying of Greek Tragedies rendered in Lochhead’s Scots verse.
📍The Hub
📅 Aug 10 – 28
🕖 8:00pm/3:00pm
🕖 Running time (approx.): 1 hour 15 minutes
👥 Director: Michael Boyd
✍️ Written by: Liz Lochhead after Euripides
🔨 Set & Costume Designer: Tom Piper
💡 Lighting Designer: Colin Grenfell
🎶 Composer & Musical Director: James Jones
🎬 Producers: National Theatre of Scotland
💰 From £37
🎂 Age undefined: parent’s discretion
🎭 Wheelchair Accessible Venue, Wheelchair Accessible Toilet, Audio Enhancement, Assistance Dogs Welcome
If the ancient myth of Medea is unknown to the theatre-goer, then they would be wise to take it’s genre, that of ‘Greek Tragedy’ seriously. In short, matters are not going to end well, not in the least. This is an old tale, first recorded in 431BC, reworked, and re-adapted by Liz Lochhead’s in 2000AD. The scene is still set in ancient Corinth, and in a time of heroes, magic, gods & monsters, but its themes are relevant now, as they were when first conceived.
Medea is very much a worst-case scenario play. What if a relationship breaks down so badly, that one of the spurned parties turns murderous? What if the collapse is so bitter, so hate-fuelling, that this need for revenge countenances the slaying of their children?
Enter then Adura Onashile as Medea, spurned wife, set-aside like chattel by her husband in pursuit of an advantageous match with a king’s daughter. This man, for whom she betrayed her family and nation for, for whom she slew her own brother, to whom she has born 3 strong children: this man is done with her. That man, that betrayer, is Jason (Robert Jack) — yes of ‘and the Argonauts’ — legendary hero, slayer of dragons, and claimant of the Golden Fleece.
Jason is quite the eligible bachelor — aside from being married with children — and has caught the eye of Princess Glauke (Alana Jackson), and her dad, King Kreon (Stephen McCole) has approved their marriage.
The National Theatre of Scotland have recent form in making a consuming experience of their productions, and Medea is no exception. Beneath the painted vault of the Hub, Tom Piper sets a raised catwalk, and a lone, darkened doorway, all rendered in rusty ochre. The audience attend this installation, milling like patrons of the forum, and forced to gaze up like supplicants at a shrine. Emphasising an other-worldly world laced with menace, Percussionist James Jones creates a stripped back, but unsettling soundscape.
The play opens with the Nurse (Anne Lacey) to Medea & Jason’s children. Medea we are told is possessed by a blind, and wordless rage, a figure to be both pitied, and feared. The Women of Corinth emerge from amongst the audience, the chorus who will mark the night’s drama, and voicing their support for Medea’s right to justice. Their stately march from amidst the floorings, up onto stage, is a manifest elevation of proceedings, a stamp of super-human grandeur.
Finally, Onashile stalks forth from the shadowed door, her exterior mania is gone, replaced by a steely avatar of vengeance. Magnificently self-assured, Onashile demands every eye, her each word burning with intention, but not affectation. When Kreon takes the stage, a bullishly commanding Stephen McCole (“The King of Castlemilk“) intent on banishing this inconvenience to his plans, his fear of her retribution seems entirely well-placed.
Jason, however, thinks to handle things differently, seeks to gaslight Medea into accepting his betrayal as good for the children, and not a slight upon her. He doesn’t want this foreign princess, it’s just good for the family, and, after all, he had every intention of ‘creeping’ back to her bedchamber in secret. It’s her fault for threatening the King, that she must depart with only Manservant (Adam Robertson) for company.
The sexual, and racial politics of Medea are writ large across Lochhead’s rendition, as Medea conceives a plan to reward her enemies for their evils against her. A foreign ‘other’ in Corinth, she has no place, and few allies, and no political power to amend her own fate. She must accept her fate, give up her children, and her life, that much is unalterable…but she can scorch the earth she leaves to bloody cinders.
Lochhead’s Scots-heavy script is brought to loving life by the cast entire, particularly Lacey who’s fluid diction makes the verse sing. Onashile, the only actor declaiming in standard English thus stands apart even more, her existence defined by a wholly different lexicon.
The gathering crescendo of blood, misery, and ‘justice’ which follows knows no moral boundaries, no unutterable taboo. Director Michael Boyd leaves most of the gruesomeness off-stage, and in the mouths of witnesses, deriving horror from the unforgiveable lines being crossed, and the souls being ripped to nothingness. There are no heroes here, just warring shades of villainy, and a few agentless innocents. Lochead’s Medea ultimately demands, and deserves no sympathy for her pre-meditated revenge, only to be understood. The oppressed often have only the most despicable tools at their disposal, so beware their uprising lest it cost you everything.
The end when it comes is rightly attended by tears, and little else.
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