![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidLast week I ushered for ASP's production of Medea (Euripides, translation by Robin Robertson) at the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center. As always, they have impressive acting, though I'm still not sure I'm happy with them producing non-Shakespeare plays yet.
The translation was more contemporary than I'd anticipated, and that was played up with the costumes being mostly contemporary clothes, though the chorus of Corinthian women were in much more classical Greek-style gowns (and they acted more like a classic Greek chorus, too). The language made it easy to focus on the issues.
I understand Medea's jealousy and anger; that's only understandable, and the revenge on her rival makes sense. I realized this time that just that wouldn't have been enough to inspire a play; without the death of the boys, it's not dramatic enough, at least for bloody Greek reality. And though I understand that her revenge is on Jason, forcing him to live with a reality that could have been so different, it still feels over-the-top that she'd turn her love for her sons to hate, enough to kill them in cold blood to complete her revenge. (Hm. In a more modern setting, I wonder whether she'd do something more like drug them to deathlike coma, or just spirit them away while telling Jason they were dead, or whether she had bloodlust needs, somehow.) It felt a little like the point in Merchant of Venice where Shylock becomes caricature rather than character to me, going over the top in his unreasonable attempt to enforce his pound of flesh.
The set included a house front that slowly split farther in two as if torn from the top. The front area started with a random (ish) placement of rocks and toys. The hall is a lovely historic space, with a very decorated ceiling; they put in a hoop of lights that looked rather like an oversized fire hoop over the main stage. The lights descended in one of the last scenes, a use of lights I'd never seen before.
The translation was more contemporary than I'd anticipated, and that was played up with the costumes being mostly contemporary clothes, though the chorus of Corinthian women were in much more classical Greek-style gowns (and they acted more like a classic Greek chorus, too). The language made it easy to focus on the issues.
I understand Medea's jealousy and anger; that's only understandable, and the revenge on her rival makes sense. I realized this time that just that wouldn't have been enough to inspire a play; without the death of the boys, it's not dramatic enough, at least for bloody Greek reality. And though I understand that her revenge is on Jason, forcing him to live with a reality that could have been so different, it still feels over-the-top that she'd turn her love for her sons to hate, enough to kill them in cold blood to complete her revenge. (Hm. In a more modern setting, I wonder whether she'd do something more like drug them to deathlike coma, or just spirit them away while telling Jason they were dead, or whether she had bloodlust needs, somehow.) It felt a little like the point in Merchant of Venice where Shylock becomes caricature rather than character to me, going over the top in his unreasonable attempt to enforce his pound of flesh.
The set included a house front that slowly split farther in two as if torn from the top. The front area started with a random (ish) placement of rocks and toys. The hall is a lovely historic space, with a very decorated ceiling; they put in a hoop of lights that looked rather like an oversized fire hoop over the main stage. The lights descended in one of the last scenes, a use of lights I'd never seen before.