Her husband’s gone and her future isn’t bright. Imprisoned in her marital home, Medea can’t work, can’t sleep, and increasingly can’t cope. While her child plays, she plots her revenge.
Receiving its world premiere at the Citizens, the production is written and directed by one of the UK’s most exciting and in demand young writers Mike Bartlett, who has received critical acclaim for his plays including Earthquakes in London, Cock (Olivier Award), a new stage version of Chariots of Fire and Love Love Love. Read more …
The play becomes a soap-opera episode about a woman reacting badly to a messy divorce, her fate seeming to be more private misfortune than archetypal tragedy.
For all its robust power and clever staging - Ruari Murchison’s rollback set works excellently - Bartlett falls at the last.
One can’t help but feel that, rather than enhancing the tragedy for modern audiences, this adaptation reduces the moral weight of the play. One longs to see Stirling, who is potentially a great Medea, like her mother, Diana Rigg, freed from the constraints of Bartlett’s suburbia.
Brave and brilliant.
In Rachael Stirling, Bartlett, who also directs, has found a Medea who can both convince as a contemporary woman scorned and reach the dramatic heights the plot demands.
The production is worth seeing for Stirling’s performance and some enjoyable moments of dark humour, but if you didn’t already know the trajectory of the story you might be forgiven for being baffled by the turn of events.
Rising playwright Mike Bartlett talks about his newest adaptation, Medea
Rachael Stirling cracks the Medea code
Mike Bartlett's Medea at Citizens Theatre
Medea: the mother of all roles
How well do you know Medea?--quiz
Photo by Manuel_HarlanCitizens' Theatre, Glasgow from Thursday September 27, 2012, until Saturday October 13, 2012. More info: www.citz.co.uk
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