BWW Reviews: MEDEA, Rose Theatre, November 11 2013

Jason, having secured the Golden Fleece and waved farewell to his Argonauts, marries the daughter of the King of Corinth - not so much for love, but for the money and staus that will secure the futures of his two sons. It's fair to say that Medea, mother of those two sons and not slow to take decisive action when needed, sees things rather differently. Granted a day in Corinth before an entirely justified exile, she wreaks a hideous revenge on Jason and her enemies - and two who were not enemies at all.

Actors of Dionysus' Medea (at the Rose Theatre until 15 November) stays true to Euripides' classical work in terms of David Stuttard's adaptation - there's the clash of rational and emotional, the personal and the political, the man and the woman. But it takes flight (literally) when Medea's final appearance flying in the chariot of Helios (the Sun God) provides inspiration for aerial work throughout the play. And this is no David Coppefield-like tricksy illusion or Cirque du Soleil gimmicky spectacle. This flying is the result of ropes and brute force - a metaphor for the way in which the characters are roped together by love, family and circumstance and the brutal force that will be visited upon them.

Tamsin Shasha's Medea is a shrieking, twisting, scheming tyrant, utterly ruthless in executing her plans, making and breaking bonds as she flies above the stage and walks up vertical walls the better to show her unworldy determination to have satisfaction. Ewan Downie's Jason is a decent chap who thinks she'll see how things will work out better his way - she doesn't. The two principals get fine support (literally at times) from Dickon Savage, Bethan Clark and Natalia Campbell, who, even more than the others, delivers lines perfectly while suspended in extraordinarily contorted positions.

All-through at 80 minutes, the tension never lets up - I'm not sure the audience or the cast could have taken much more. Though it's a gruelling watch, one feels the tremendous power of theatre, even at the distance of nearly 2,500 years.

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