Medea
It’s a terrifying tale. But not as rare, for example, as the human sacrifice at the center of Iphigenia in Tauris. There have been several news stories in the past few years about women driven by madness and fear of abandonment to kill their children–most recently the case in Naperville.
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But Euripides’ play is much more than a bit of yellow journalism tossed raw and squirming onto the stage. What makes this work, first performed in 431 BC, still powerful is how exquisitely he reveals all sides of Medea’s story. He does more than show us a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown: in Medea he creates both a specific and powerful character with her own history and needs and an archetype of much deeper drives and anxieties.
Rudall’s text, commissioned for this production, admirably recasts Euripides’ play in modern American English. Though born and raised in Britain, Rudall avoids all the annoying, dusty Victorianisms of 19th-century translators and their imitators. And the cast list reads like a roll call of Chicago’s finest Equity actors: MaryAnn Thebus, Rob Riley, Yasen Peyankov, and Carmen Roman as Medea, still luminescent from her success last season as Maria Callas in Master Class. But Russell might as well have been directing a student production of a Dudley Fitts translation.
And then there’s Roman. Clearly ready for the challenge and looking every inch the weird, witchy fortysomething faded beauty who still carries herself as if she were drop-dead gorgeous, Roman nevertheless disappoints. Her Medea is always on the verge of moving us but never quite gets there. It’s as if every time Roman wanted to leap into the depths of her character, she saw Medea’s dark depths and something held her back.
