Medea is one of the greatest roles in classical drama.How to convey someone whose life is in ruins? A wife whose husband has left her for another woman? A mother of two who gets revenge by absolutely any means necessary?It’s hard enough to hit the right balance between love and loss.It’s even tougher to get a credible switch between Medea’s admirable loyalties and the monster she becomes. The plot usually turns nasty as she brutally murders her children in revenge.The male-written play, 2,500 years old, therefore can play into all to worse sexist stereotypes. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” “The female response to rejection is unimaginable fury.”Kate Fleetwood does a fine job in the role at the Almeida in London -- though this version has a real curveball of a plot twist which makes things easier for her.The character of Medea usually evolves. There are hints of disbelief, vulnerability and tears and only then the full-on “I’m gonna kill them” insanity. Fleetwood’s interpretation is mouthy and bolshie from the start, and not as 100-percent-unstable as many.There are plenty of hints at a bloodbath to come, with Medea talking of “dismantling” her loved ones.The audience may well have seen the plot spoilers being so widely reported. Look away now if you don’t want to hear about it.Gender politics are given a contemporary setting.Medea is updated to being a screenwriter. She has to square up to a line of sarcastically smug designer mummies in the chorus. All this imagination comes from the adapting playwright Rachel Cusk. She has written extensively on both her motherhood, with the 2001 excellent memoir “A Life’s Work,” and the breakup of her marriage, in its 2012 sequel “Aftermath.”Hubby Jason is now depicted as a famous actor, and given a sardonic swagger by Justin Salinger. Jason runs off with Creon’s daughter. Creon is now a different sort of king – an executive who ends Media’s contract. She pens a nasty TV sitcom that mocks Jason to get revenge.“What,” I hear you say, “is that it?”Well, not quite. There are sleeping pills along the way to finish off her family, though it’s a little unclear. Right at the end she is at a graveside, but we are left wondering who lies buried there.Fleetwood (who is Almeida Artistic Director Rupert Goold’s wife) plays the game magnificently, with a matter-of-factness that suggests she’s a classical Medea ready to take up the knife for the injustices.Goold has taken a radical approach to the Greek classics by Aeschylus and Euripides this year. In “Orestia” and “Bakkhai,” sections were chopped and scenes added. For this he deserves applause. After lengthy versions, this “Medea” is succinct, just 90 minutes with no interval.Whatever Medea’s puts in her blender (berries or blood?), it is certainly tradition that gets pulped. That’s one way of dragging Euripides into 2015 and making the play relevant again to the yummy mummies, ad executives and sundry celebrities in the audience. Maybe they will recognize themselves onstage. Almeida Greeks: “Medea” runs through November 14 at the Almeida, Almeida Street, N1 1TA.
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