A credit for Medea specifies that it’s “written by Simon Stone after Euripides.” That could be a way of saying the new tragedy is written approximately 2,450 years after Euripides wrote his take on the then already famous tale of sorceress Medea who got revenge on betraying husband Jason by killing their two young sons and his new wife.
Now, two-and-a-half millennia later, Stone has updated the Greek dramatist’s work—believing, as we all do, that the classics earn their niche by tapping into perpetual human themes. He’s crafted a play about a contemporary woman with what might as well be dubbed a Medea complex. That would be something, it might be thought, even worse than an Oedipus or Elektra complex.
Stone bases his conviction that everything old can be new again on a 1995 headline-grabber wherein Kansas physician Debora Green poisoned her husband as well as killing herself and their children. To make certain the latter three definitely perished, she set fire to their home.
[Read Elysa Gardner’s ★★★★ review here.]
In this Medea, Anna (Rose Byrne), newly released from an institution, is counting on reuniting with husband Lucas (Bobby Cannavale). That’s despite her having attempted to poison him, and then spending time in a padded cell for the disturbed activity. Now at liberty, she persists along her hopeful lines, no matter how adamant Lucas is that such reconciliation is out of the question. Added to Anna’s ignominy, Lucas reports that she’s been banned from the medical laboratories where they worked as scientists together.
He’s not so adamant about their untangling, however, that he doesn’t succumb to a reminiscing hay-roll that happens to be videoed by son Edgar (Jolly Swag in the performance this reviewer caught). Other son Gus (Orson Hong, at that performance) looks on at the scene, commenting to his in flagrante delicto dad—in the production’s most realistic line—“I can see your penis.”
To cause as much trouble as she can, devious minx Anna shows up with the graphic video at the digs Jason shares with new squeeze Clara (Madeline Weinstein). Needless to say, she succeeds in causing chaos, and since Stone is faithfully following the basic Euripides outlines, the expected tumultuous ramifications ensue.
Stone does add a few elements that only have tangential relationships to the B. C. Medea. Clara’s father, Christopher (Dylan Baker), puts in a couple of appearances, as do Elsbeth (Jordan Boatmen), a social worker supposedly seeing to Anna’s needs, and Herbert (Victor Almanzar), a bookstore owner for whom Anna Is meant to be working in a transitional career change.
Since Euripides’ Medea and Stone’s Medea are both composed to be as stark as possible, Stone’s takes place on Bob Cousins’ all-white set with Sarah Johnston’s all-but-blinding white lighting maximizing the effect. A center white panel rises and lowers. On it, videos of the characters appear—most prominently Byrne as Anna. (Julia Frey is the video designer.) The somber, timeless mood is underscored by Stefan Gregory’s music and sound design.
Yes, Stone, who also directs, succeeds in presenting something undeniably stunning. Anyone taking in the deliberate white-on-white-on-whiteness knows that the inevitable (stage) blood, when it’s spilled, will be eye-popping. It is. Late in the 80-minute proceedings there’s yet another oddball eye-popper. It’s the uneven circular mound made by pieces of hair-like black strands and clumps that drop and drop and drop for minutes on end, as if forming a gallery installation by, say, Wolfgang Laib.
Unfortunately, the stunning aspect only goes so far dramatically. Though intended to be devastating, the Anna-Lucas conflict, which is continually combative, all too soon becomes tedious. Indeed, for all the repetitive contentiousness, there is the sense of Anna and Lucas being underwritten.
This is not so much in Anna’s unceasing manipulative obliviousness as it is in Lucas’s inability to acknowledge that his ex-wife is still unstable enough to require further medical help—if not renewed psychiatric commitment. As the build-up to Anna’s final fatal action accelerates there’s a sequence when her incessant phoning Lucas at his work would likely signal dire eventualities to any but the most thick-headed onetime spouse.
Lucas has already been shown to be a deficient husband, of course. There’s his leaving Anna for Clara, but he also reveals himself as a thoughtless father. When chastising Edgar for videoing his parents’ sexual encounter, he harshly accuses the boy of being so difficult that he has no friends. No follow-up to the cruelty is introduced.
Into the insufficient writing mix, Clara is also only a sketchy so-and-so. Her difficulty at understanding Lucas’ indecisive behavior is one thing, but there isn’t much more to her than that. The same goes for Christopher and Elsbeth. Herbert’s only raison d’etre is his recounting to Anna the tale of a woman at last so furious at her husband’s brutality that she cuts off his offending member. (The name Lorena Bobbitt isn’t mentioned.)
Admittedly, there are offsetting factors to Stone’s drawbacks: the Byrne and Cannavale acting. The beautiful Byrne—particularly as the video camera observes her—conveys every nuance of Anna’s despair and calculation. Byrne’s depiction of a woman way beyond the verge of a nervous breakdown is impeccable. Cannavale imbues Lucas with as many acting complexities as he’s able. Worth the price of admission is the amused, bemused, hardly admonishing or embarrassed look he gives when his sons catch him in bed with their mother. (Though not married, Byrne and Cannavale are partners for seven years, with two sons of their own at their Brooklyn home. Think about that for a few seconds.)
Stone, whose Yerma wowed New York City crowds two years back (I missed it), is correct in believing that the Greeks understood persisting human psychology. Certainly, Medea is timeless. Therefore, if a playwright is going to update it, he or she has to make it more trenchantly timely and probing than Stone has.
Medea opened January 30, 2020, at the BAM Harvey Theater and runs through March 8. Tickets and information: bam.org
