Medea
by Euripides

State Theatre
Medea…… Doris Younane
Jason…..Luciano Martucci
Nurse……Nina Paleologos
Creon…..Michael Griffin
Aegeus….Nicola Tudini
Messenger/Tutor…Nicola Primaro
Medea’s children…John Defrancesco, Yiani Harpas, Paul Tepsic,
Rohan Shirodkar
Chorus leader….Yiannis Fragos
Chorus………Catriona Barr, Annmarie Beni, Lynne Smythe
Prepared piano/percussion….Gabriella Smart
Director/Designer…..Constantine Koukias
Designer……Ann Wulf
Lighting Designer….Krystof Kozlowski
Projection Artist….Hugh McSpedden
Sound Designer…..Donald Hopkins
Assistant Directors….Gina Tsikouras, Benedict Andrews
Dramaturg…..Nick Hughes
The Amphitheatre, Elder Park
Adelaide . Opening night 11 February, 1995

There is no other playwright from Fifth Century Athens as startling as Euripides and no play, with the exception of The Bacchae, as fascinating as Medea. It is a play which shimmers in front of us, its meanings clear but strangely elusive. On the strength of it, Euripides has been branded a misogynist and hailed as a proto-feminist. The contemporary relevance of the play is reinforced with every recurrence of family mayhem from kidnapping to homicide. The terrible murderous impulses revealed in the O.J. Simpson case and the Munchausen-by-proxy mysteries of the Susan Smith case in Union, South Carolina are two recent instances of events of Euripidean proportions.

But the task for a director of Medea is to invoke these possibilities without losing sight of the supernatural elements of the play, recognising and reminding us that this is not a work of 20th century realism but a mythic, perplexing glimpse of dark energies both worldly and other-worldly.

State Theatre’s first production for the year opened in perfect surroundings. The little-used amphitheatre adjacent to the Festival Centre complex in Elder Park was filled to capacity with a crowd delighted to be sitting under the stars on a perfect Adelaide night. State’s Executive Producer has done well to involve the sponsorship of the Greek Orthodox community in a theatrical event which mirrors the ethnicity and culture of the city.

Director/composer Constantine Koukias and designer Ann Wulf have given us an ambitious Medea but not a satisfactorily resolved one. The music performed by percussion, electronics and traditional Greek and Byzantine instruments, powerfully sets the atmosphere before the play began, especially in Donald Hopkins’ surround-sound design.

Ann Wulf’s decor echoes, in postmodern Perspex, the skene of the ancient stage while the main acting area is transformed into a shallow pool of water. This not only reflects images of the actors and the expressionist variations of Krystof Kozlowski’s effectively bold lighting design, but represents, we are told, the interface between land and sea and the private and public spheres of Medea’s life. Also, Wulf informs us in the program notes- “The pool of water stained with milk, tears and blood acts as reference to female fluids and extends the analysis of the exchange value of a woman’s value which informs the text.”

Apart from proving cryptic in the production itself these signifiers focus on a view of the play which sees Medea as a woman victimised by a xenophobic society but fails to recognise that Medea is a demi-goddess, a sorceress who has powers not only to burn her enemies to a crisp but to escape the consequences of her actions. The irony for Medea is that, with all her power, she cannot govern the directions of the heart -either her own or that of her Champagne Charlie, Jason, who can’t resist a good career move when he sees one.

In the lead, Doris Younane is a powerful but not always compelling Medea. Her heavy eye make-up and long black braids, intriguingly, have a silent-cinema histrionic to them, and her delivery, best when understated, works well. Younane’s entrance, in classic black, is striking but in much of the production the actor’s work is frustrated by the direction and restrictions of design. Lucianio Martucci is the right mix of gall and grief as Jason and his scenes with Younane are well-sustained. The use of sound mikes allows the actors to deliver lines emphatically without declamation and the echo effect in the amphitheatre creates an interesting sense of unreality, reminiscent perhaps of the mask performances of the classical theatre.

Michael Griffin is creditable as Creon but both he and Nicola Primaro, complete with white wings, as the Messenger, are hindered by the excesses of Ann Wulf’s costumes. They may have been accurately recreated from classical sources but in an already visually loaded production they prove to be a half turn too much.

The reduction of the Chorus to a musical counterpoint places too great an emphasis on the role of the Nurse as foil to Medea and generally, Nina Paleologos is unequal to the task. The Chorus however provide some of the most effective dramatic moments in the play – both the solo voice of Yiannis Fragos and the haunting vocals of Catriona Barr, Annmari Beni and Lynne Smythe.

In this production Constantine Koukias has created a splendid musical frame but his direction falters, hindered by a design more conceptual than practical. As well, his text, which has cut the narrative link between Medea and the Chorus has deprived us of important motivational information. It also calls for the murder of the children on stage – an event, like the death of Creon and his daughter, made infinitely more ghastly by messenger’s report. This also means that, in the final scene, Medea is marooned upstage with the corpses when she should- courtesy of one of theatre’s most notorious uses of the deus-ex-machina
– be placed above and beyond the misery and snarlings of Jason, leaving him and us to ponder the meanings of this complex play.

Financial Review, February 16, 1995. (?) Not verified.

Murray Bramwell
01/17/9501/17/95’