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Never before has the myth of Medea, and her reasons for killing her children, been so poignantly relevant. A brief overview of the Medea tragedy: a woman, Medea, is so angered by her husband Jason’s infidelity that she kills her children, and her husband’s lover and his father in a rampage of revenge. It has always been a rich vein to mine in theatre for the oppression of women, how society can push people to the depths of horrors and the role of the outsider against the establishment.
The Irish premier of Kate Mulvany and Anne-Louise Sarks’ adaptation of the Euripides classic was certainly in high anticipation as it opened the Gate Theatre’s #PowerandFreedom season. Retold from the perspective of the two boys (played on opening night by Jude Lynch and Oscar Butler), this adaptation is hugely contemporary in its use of technology such as iPods, fish tanks and a stage that looks straight out of an IKEA catalog. The stage opens with the two boys, Jasper and Leon, playing dead and locked in their room that is littered with toys, blankets and games. Jasper attempts to protect his younger brother Leon from the things he can barely comprehend himself. Their innocence is played to perfection by the two boys and they both hold their own on the vast Gate stage. Both are innocent bystanders to their tragic fate. Their compliance to go along with their deranged mother’s best interests. Despite being locked in their room and given no information, it feels like their silence has, at times, been too sanitised.
Overall, the script feels slow-paced and the audience must endure long moments of the children playing word games about extinct and not-so-extinct animals, to pass the time. As the two boys innocently recall moments of their parents’ marriage, we are presented with brief glimpses of Medea (played by Eileen Walsh), as she comes and goes from the children’s bedroom in slight panic, carefully locking the door each time she leaves. Walsh reveals moments of anguish and internalised hysteria as she paces the children’s bedroom in her pajamas and slippers—these moments are all so few and we never really relate to her experience fully.
Theatre audiences have always understood the tragic destiny of the Euripides classic. However, this feels like an opportunity missed in modernising and adapting the deranged motivations of a mother’s love. The safety net is never fully pulled away and the well behaved children never act out, or attempt to understand the logic of their mentally unstable mother and ultimately are left too emotionally sanitised as characters. “You smell of chemicals, mummy” is the children’s response to the horrific murder of their father’s new wife. As theatre goers for centuries have proven, there is an instinctive understanding of the horrific situation that Medea presents, and for the reasons in her madness, yet this opportunity to remove the safety net and play on contemporary issues of a mother’s jealous love, and from the unique perspective of the children is sorely missed.
Ultimately, this production of Medea never pushes the boundaries of the Euripides classic, nor develops the classic tale into something relevant or viscerally challenging to contemporary audiences. For all the subtle naturalism of this production, it fails to ignite the passion and magic that audiences are so used to with Medea.
