It may be that anyone reading, or more likely, hearing the title Medea Re-Versed will get the notion that this production of the Euripides classic doesn’t present the mad title figure murdering her sons but the reverse: the sons murdering Medea.
That would be some updating. But forget it, and notice that the word “re-versed” carries a hyphen. So, yes, the reference is to Euripides’s Greek verses being given a new adaptation, a new translation, the latest of how many (hundreds, thousands?) translations over the millennia.
One facet of translation, of course, is that they’re usually intended to match whatever other language – the idioms, the slang, et cetera — is spoken at the era into which it’s introduced. Which is exactly what translator Luis Quintero, a master of hip-hop, does here.
Oh, yes, this Medea Re-versed is rapped–although not quite start to finish. What a terrific, what a mind-blowing idea! Talk about original. Indeed, Quintero’s inspiration is so well thought through that by the time its 90 minutes pass, some or even all audience members will be convinced that if Euripides were creating it today and not in 431 B. C., he would have composed it exactly as Quintero has. Sure, the seminal playwright was 49 at the time and past the age of most rappers. Yet he must have been a cool dude, no?
Medea’s tragic tale — the nature of “tragedy” is discussed throughout — remains the same. Medea (Sarin Monae West), having helped hubby Jason (Stephen Michael Spencer) steal the golden fleece, is living in Corinth with their two sons but becomes outraged when the man of the house, thinking he’d like to follow Creon (Jacob Ming-Trent) as king, marries Creon’s princess daughter, hoping to establish the boys as Corinth’s heirs. Jilted wife Medea says not so fast to herself and repeatedly to him, subsequently doing in not only Creon and the gowned princess but also the innocent boys.
Quintero leading the rapping—with Ming-Trent, Spencer, and West often joining in or taking over—imparts much of the text but stands aside for several of the spoken scenes. Medea predominates in these one-on-one intervals as she confronts Creon, Jason and Athens King Ageus (Ming-Trent doubling in a different outfit designer Nicole Wee puts together).
Each of the three actors is an accomplished rapper, but this is where the production’s one intermittent setback occurs. Rapping, by definition, requires rapid delivery, but here Quintero is telling an especially emotional story. He begins his piece by announcing that what’s being dispensed is “art through articulation.”
As it happens, articulation is a problem. The performers so rightly are caught up in their high-drama feelings that what they’re declaiming — through Quintero’s copious collection of on- and off-rhymes, “Pops” with “Aesop” among them — isn’t clearly expressed. A powerful example is Medea’s description of how she snuffed the princess by sending the gift of an incendiary gown. Her excoriation, however, is only intermittently understandable. Such that after she finishes the vengeful disquisition, Quintero has a messenger (Ming-Trent again) arrive to report the disastrous fracas to Medea, as messengers in tragedies are usually assigned to do.
In contrast, the spoken scenes are dynamite, as overseen by director Nathan Winkelstein. As Medea, West — thin as a matchstick and just as ready to be set aflame in Wee’s sheer, eventually bloodied frock — overflows with increasing retributive energy. Ming-Trent, sliding in and out of various tunics, brings his usual authority to all three roles and proves to be a top-drawer rapper. Medium-sized Spencer with biceps for days, behaves like an errant pinball. Whatever he does — and he does plenty — he’s irresistibly watchable.
Inextricably part of the action is the upstage musical trio, beatboxer Mark Martin, guitarist Siena D’Addario, ,and bassist Melissa Mahoney. They go at it all but throughout, and while making rap-confident music, something slyly suggestive transpires. Talking here of the amplification. Sound designer Matt Otto sees to it that when the three get going full throttle, the auditorium seats throb. Suddenly, it’s as if Medea’s tragedy is coursing through audience bodies. Some spectators members might be annoyed by the effect. Others might go right along with it, feeling the tragedy that overcoming.
Is Medea the first Greek tragedy to be named after a female figure? Since so many works of the crucial period have been lost, the answer will never be known. Still, Quintero is aware he’s writing at a moment when women’s rights to what they can and cannot control is in serious question. The attitude he so strongly takes towards this singular woman is well worth studying.
Medea Re-Versed opened September 23, 2018, at the Sheen Center and runs through October 20. Tickets and information: sheencenter.org
