4:54pm Wednesday 17th March 2010
By Charles Hutchinson
CELEBRITY infidelity is all the rage in the Sunday tabloids, but it was ever thus, never more so than in Medea’s ultra-violent response to Jason trading her in for a younger royal model.
Medea’s act of matricide – reported rather than seen in Barrie Rutter’s jazzed-up, hammy production – is the mother of all retributions.
Northern Broadsides crank up this scorned woman’s fury in an 80-minute sound-clash that is a little bit of everything but not enough of one thing to form a purposeful, coherent whole.
After casting comedian Lenny Henry in Othello, the Halifax company’s headline grabber this time is to commission an earthy yet poetic version of Euripides’s Greek tragedy from Newsnight culture critic and poet Tom Paulin, and then throw Edwardian/Clockwork Orange suits and bowler hats, a burst of the blues and an incongruous ear-bothering squall of electric guitar and keyboards into the mixing bowl.
Paulin’s dowdy, three-strong Yorkshire Greek chorus (Michelle Hardwick, Barbara Hockaday and Heather Phoenix) turn out to be too close to Macbeth’s witches, but one interesting idea is to give Nina Kristofferson’s Barbarian Medea and fellow black actress Cleo Sylvestre’s Nurse immigrant status in Corinth, although that is mere detail.
Sylvestre’s opening news bulletin is cumbersome and typical of a Paulin script too full of reportage, while Kristofferson’s wounded, smouldering Medea is better in her vulnerable moments than when her rage is in full sail, crashing cymbals and all. Alas, all that noise and fury signifies nothing but a Broadsides mis-fire.
Medea, Northern Broadsides, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until Saturday. Box office: 01723 370541.
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