Medea

When: Tuesday 22nd July

 

Where: National Theatre

 

Why: Classics innit

 

“They are the sun that lights his world
So I will plunge him into darkness.”

 

Oooh Medea you’re a horror. I love an ancient tragedy, and was basically brought up on them in my teenage years thanks to a school classics teacher’s connections with the Actors of Dionysus – an avant garde theatre group specialising in ancient plays (so much drama, so much scaffolding, so much writhing). This Medea was directed by Carrie Cracknell, who also did the Hattie Morahan version of A Doll’s House which I loved, so really I had no choice but to go.

 

Medea’s two ill-fated (to say the least) sons await the audience as they lie on their tummies in a pool of TV light, and this very normal scene of innocence and relaxation must really stick in the throats of all the parents in the audience anticipating the utter breakdown of this contented state of affairs.

 

Helen Mcrory’s Medea is charged, strong and savage, as she strides through her house like a trapped animal and psychologically unravels over the course of 90 minutes. It’s a fast moving play that seems driven by the very speed of Medea’s thoughts and the whirring of her mind. She is stricken and furious as her actions get her deeper into the hole she’s digging, and when she finds herself in the bleakest possible situation her fury and wits and wild logic lead her to the inevitable grisly conclusion. She needs to harm Jason, who has done her so much wrong, more than she needs to protect herself.   

 

I wasn’t a big fan of Danny Sapani’s portrayal of Jason. In this modern telling of the play, his ruthless businessman-like attitude and patronising presentation of his abandonment as a benefit to them all (“I did it for us, darling”) did work well as a concept, but I was underwhelmed by his reserved performance. One review described him as “curiously under-energised” – his vague wander out of the room where he’s just seen his two dead sons, followed by a bit of a groan and a stumble off the stage, did nothing for me really. I need guts and shrieking to make it worth my while. In a way though it highlighted Medea’s tragedy even more, in that she can’t get over this lame-o suit even though she knows how much he isn’t worth it.

 

The set portrays Medea’s state of being: the real world floats above, out of her reach, as the wedding of Jason and Creusa plays out, and she is hopelessly stuck at home with nothing but wilderness and exile in the forest behind her, ever approaching. The end of the play sees her fully committing to the darkness as she heads out there with the bodies of her sons literally burdening her, as her illusions of the gods’ protection are not fulfilled (no dragon-led chariots in this production, soz Euripides). Her hollow triumph is guttingly portrayed in the bleakest possible way.

 

I’d heard much made of the music and choreography in this version and was genuinely excited to see what would come of it, but to be totally honest I didn’t really notice the music, and found myself having to hold back giggles at the choreography. The Actors of Dionysus (who I love, by the way) prepared me well for ridiculous movement in a classical play (just to re-iterate – SO much writhing), but even so I was taken off guard by the dance moves in this performance. The chorus moved from Fifties housewife style advisors to living portrayals of Medea’s raging thoughts, spikily jerking and pulsing in a disturbing and enveloping troupe. It was impressive, don’t get me wrong, but unfortunately also hilarious. One move was almost a copy of Ricky Gervais’s famous David Brent dance moves, which sent me right over the edge. God I’m so unsophisticated. Similarly, I’d been looking forward to Goldfrapp’s score, which I think did offer a sense of unnerving atmosphere and foreboding within the play, but wasn’t especially memorable.

 

I followed up my visit by attending a talk on the psychology of Medea at the NT a few weeks later, drawn by the presence of forefront classicist Edith Hall (big fan of her irreverent style). The discussion considered concepts of insanity and asked whether Medea was actually ‘mad’. She is exiled, abandoned, a stranger with no support around her, but she also brought a lot of this on herself – she is a master manipulator who has been driven by rage and lust and power her whole life. She has murdered a family member before (her brother, to help Jason). She’s a fascinating character, and apparently in the ancient world represented the ultimate example of what happens when you don’t take care of your women.

 

Great stuff from Helen Mcrory who was close to perfect and provided me with as much screaming and horror as I could possibly want from this brilliant story.

 

Brixpig x

The Light Princess

When: Tuesday 28^th January 

Where: National Theatre 

Why: Time Out ticket offer 
 

This was the first play I saw at the National Theatre. I had previously been in to the Philip Pullman talk about fairy tales and made use of the theatre bar to shelter in, but I was looking forward to a real theatrical experience. The Lyttelton theatre is functional, décor-wise, but very comfortable and spacious which my wriggly self appreciated (I am still emotionally, and probably physically, scarred after the Mack and Mabel seating hell at the Southwark theatre’s old location – let’s hope they didn’t take their chairs with them when they moved).

I was drawn in by the promise of music written by Tori Amos and the inspiration for the story from George Macdonald’s fairy tale (which is beautiful and which you can read here). The princess is basically anti-gravity, both literally and emotionally, and the plot follows on from this. It was ingeniously staged and I had been intrigued about how the princess would fly. I was initially irrationally disappointed to see it would mainly be via three royal subjects lifting and supporting Rosalie Craig as the princess, and assisting as she clambered over the vertically reaching set (the bookshelves in her tower were a triumph). But she was so confident and flowing that you really forgot she wasn’t flying, and also came to appreciate the supporting actors’ combined skill.

Having since seen the Oliviers, I can’t help feel that Rosalie was a bit robbed of the best actress in a musical award (especially since the winner was from devil-musical Once - shudder). Her stamina, elegance, and spirit really deserved to be recognised – and to sing so beautifully under such physically demanding conditions was masterful.

The play itself was perfectly balanced – dramatic and funny in turn, full of cheeky humour for both adults and children and with perfectly pitched emotion. The staging was some of the most creative I’ve ever seen – even the lake scene with the prince and princess swimming through various layers of fabric and encountering hopping water creatures was brilliantly done. It was all just charming and massively exceeded my expectations.

In conclusion – I discovered a new fairy tale and had a luminous evening. Good going. 

Brixpig x

Philip Pullman Panel

When: Wednesday 2nd January

Where: Olivier Theatre, National Theatre

Why: I loves me some fairy tales

Philip Pullman appeared at the National Theatre to do a little chat about his new book – a re-telling of some of Grimm’s fairy tales. I’d seen him give a lecture once before at Newcastle Uni, about story telling and his writing, and he’s a very captivating speaker. I always find him interesting because I like a lot of what he says about story telling and his matter-of-fact manner, but I don’t entirely agree with certain aspects of his thought about religion and literature (dissertation, yo). But he was great on the subject of fairy tales on this occasion, on the effect these stories have on children and their importance in the modern world and in defence of fairy tales as a type of fiction.

He spoke quite a lot about the process of writing the Grimm tales, and how his intention was not to create a poetic, imaginative version like Carol Ann Duffy or Angela Carter, but to be true to the original sense of the stories and to keep a rigid simplicity in the telling of them. His main aim was apparently to keep the writing “as clear as glass”, partly through simplicity and partly by viciously eliminating adverbs: “… just use a better verb”. Wise words. He also accompanies each story with notes on previous versions, its background and so on. 

Regarding the tales themselves, one thing which he had found very different to his usual style of writing was that the characters within fairy tales are often blank, almost cardboard cut-out figures to whom interesting things happen. There are no fully developed, deep personalities but rather the stories carry them along without delving particularly far into their motivations and history. This allows listeners to project their own ideas onto the characters, to picture them more clearly and allow their imagination to flourish. It’s sort of a two-way street – you hear the story from one end but contribute just as much back to it with your own imagination and additions to the characters. (I wonder what Pullman would think then of the new Hansel and Gretel film coming out which portrays the siblings fifteen years later, messed up and seeking revenge…).

Pullman also refused any illustrations in this version – to allow it all to appear in your head, as it should. This blankness of the characters also serves a protective purpose, to disconnect you from some of the horrifying scenes in these tales. This lets any young listeners engage with the scary aspects of the stories but also protects them a bit. One other example of this is that in many of the very first versions of some stories, we see a mother figure at the centre of things, but in revised tellings she becomes a step-mother – one step removed from true family, perhaps to make it easier to accept the awful things they do that you wouldn’t want a real mother to be capable of.

Some questions were taken at the end of the panel, and one which I found intriguing was a mother asking whether these stories were problematic in that they don’t offer a reflection of our world, in terms of justice. These tales are very black and white, moralistically, but we don’t live in a world as simple as that. Pullman’s response was that yes, we do also need the more realistic dramas to show how things really are, but it is the whole nature of a fairy tale to be black and white – if it is not, then it’s not a fairy tale. He argued that children do see things in terms of simple right or wrong and so deserve this kind of story too. I also think that at the time when these stories were told as folk tales, the world was just as unfair as it is now, and that these were told as a kind of comfort or a standard to uphold. 

When asked whether he disliked any of the stories, Pullman interestingly picked out a “too pious” tale which has overtly religious themes – where a father prays to the devil and cuts off his daughter’s hands in exchange for money. She goes away and suffers, then prays and gets her hands back. He saw this story as “stupid” and unfair, as there is no punishment mentioned for the father. It’s interesting that he focuses on retribution, as you could view it as a story of pure faith, based on what happens to the girl and her reward for a life of innocent suffering. But I get what he means. The dad sounds like a total knob.

His recommendations for further fairy tale reading included Italo Calvino’s fairy tales, and an old version by Catherine Briggs. He ended by considering the state of oral storytelling today and his sadness that it is a dying art, and urged people to see reading and writing as a gain but not a replacement for telling tales out loud.

The book is out now - it's on my list!

Brixpig x