Christopher Walker reviews Medea at The Soho Place Theatre
Greek theatre is in vogue this season.
The National Theatre is working on a new take on the Odyssey, hot on the heels of its production of Phaedra.
Meanwhile the Soho Place theatre offers us a reworking of that old shocker Medea.
Euripides hasn’t been this hip in two and a half thousand years.
The Soho Place is a wonderful new theatre at the top of Charing Cross road.
As well as having all the latest bells and whistles, for example drenching the performers in a rainstorm, it is a theatre in the round.
This means we are at least spared that other current trend – a revolving stage.
Their adaptation of Medea by Robinson Jeffers has stuck far closer to the original than some of the other Greek tragedies on offer.
As such this is quite a gruelling evening, as we watch Jason’s wife gradually overcome with insane jealousy to the point of murder.
This is not for the faint hearted.
Sophie Okonedo is excellent in the title role and captures the crucial sense of Medea being an outsider – an Asiatic woman among the Greeks.
She also demonstrates the full injustice of her mistreatment at the hands of various powerful men, whether that is the dictator Creon, her ‘saviour’ Aegeus, or her own husband.
All of the male roles in this piece are played by the excellent Ben Daniels with the most minimal of costume changes and a handful of theatrical tricks (one of the more disconcerting ones is his slow perambulation around the stage in between appearances).
The only exception to this are the two youngsters playing Medea’s sons – Kobe Champion-Norville and Oscar Coleman.
The very experienced Marion Bailey is perfectly cast as Medea’s ‘nurse,’ increasingly desperate as she attempts to control her mistress’s murderous intentions.
The piece is well directed by Dominic Cooke, especially (spoiler alert) the planting of the Chorus in the audience.
Joe McInnes, Amy Trigg and Penny Layden are the three ‘Women of Corinth.”
Not easy watching, but outstanding Greek tragedy.
Website: https://sohoplace.org/whats-on/medea
Pictures: Photo credits Johan Persson