Medea: Northern Broadsides (Oxford Playhouse)

The fascinating thing about the Greek plays is that even after 2000 years, they still possess deeply powerful moments that shake the viewer's soul. Even when a particular interpretation has underlying problems, those moments somehow survive. Medea is a case in point. The blues might be a logical choice of music on paper but in practice it doesn't always work, and the seriously distracting electric guitar at one key point made it feel more like the 1970s than ancient Greece. Some of the performances are worringly strident, and yet the play itself remains deeply disturbing ("the gods themselves turn pale when we kill our children") On one level Medea is a synpathetic character - a strong woman but a wronged wife - but this is constantly undercut by her own jealousy, pride and uncontrollable anger, not to mention her skill in murderous sorcery. The true victims are the unseen children, pawns in her plan of revenge. The exchanges between Medea and Jason keep the audience's sympathy swinging between the two (his arrogance and ungratefulness, her self-pity and ruthlessness) but ultimately we wonder: did his new wife and her father *really* deserve such hideous deaths? did his children *really* deserve to die in order to make him suffer? These acts go unpunished and Medea is able to glory in her triumph while the gods - maybe - get what they want. It's not a comforting thought.