Medea review: Serious performances in an adaptation that doesn’t show the same commitment

Euripides's ancient tragedy is seen from a child's perspective, in Kate Mulvany and Anne-Louise Sarks’s version. Photo: Ros Kavanagh 

Gate Theatre, Dublin

★ ★

Something was once said about My Home is Far Away, Dawn Powell’s autobiographical novel about her neglectful childhood. Here is “one of the very few examples of a book written for adults, with an adult command of the language, that maintains the vantage point of a hungry, serious child throughout”.

Don’t think children can’t be insightful tellers of serious stories. Even Euripides’s ancient tragedy Medea can be seen from a child’s perspective - even if children don’t come out of it well. 

Such is the innovation of Kate Mulvany and Anne-Louise Sarks’s version of the classic, produced by the Gate Theatre. Locked inside a bedroom, terrifically crammed with toys, two boys Leon (Oscar Butler) and Jasper (Jude Lynch) wait for their mother Medea (Eileen Walsh) to “sort stuff out” with their father. 

Here, beyond the breakdown of their parents’ marriage, the brothers jump in and out of games entertainingly choreographed by director Oonagh Murphy. They play dead (see the play’s arch opening scene), and pretend to be heroes dramatically struck down. It’s either a lot of foreshadowing, or some comment on how tragedy, once a means to show reverence, has become our entertainment. 

Sometimes exposition is child’s play. When Lynch’s impatient Jasper persuades the older, independent Leon to remove his headphones and tell the pet goldfish about their father’s achievements, Butler proudly recounts the heroics of Jason and the Argonauts.

These performances are serious in their storytelling. If only the plot showed the same commitment. It’s nice to see the kids aware of their parents’ conflict, and hopeful it will be resolved. (“It only takes a kiss to make up,” says Leon). But when Walsh’s Medea arrives with news that the boys will move in with their father and his “friend,” they take the news surprisingly well. They get excited about moving into a larger house, with a trampoline and pool. 

Perhaps loyalties will always need to vanish in Medea, to let its vengeance loose, but here it creates the unsatisfying effect of these characters having no serious arc.

As destined plot points move into play, the biggest provocation is that Medea’s chilling actions may be viewed as an act of maternal affection. That’s an idea that the script hasn’t done the groundwork on, nor is it something that Walsh can build up with what little material is given to her. As a result, the tragedy is sad, but it’s also shrouded in mystery. 

Runs until Feb 22nd.