Ramps provide exits at all four corners, and the women of Corinth, the chorus in the play, are strategically placed in the audience seating.Īll the roles are well taken, and while the main burden rests with Ben Daniels and Sophie Okonedo, it is important to note that there is real quality in the supporting roles too. The action is presented in the round taking full advantage of the excellent sightlines at the new venue We are presented with a paved courtyard, from which a spiral staircase that leads down below to rooms off-stage. The evening runs straight through in a compelling ninety-minute span. Despite the fact that it was devised for a 1940s production starring Judith Anderson, it still strikes the ear as a starkly raw modernist text, finding a range of elevated tragic grandeur and specific grisly horror, as required. The adaptation used is the famous and austerely rugged version by the Californian poet Robinson Jeffers. Director Dominic Cooke has trusted to the strengths of the play and his cast and deserves credit for doing so. This much anticipated new production of Euripides’ Medea is in many ways quite traditional in its approach, and none the worse at all for that. Last Updated on 18th February 2023 Tim Hochstrasser reviews Dominic Cooke’s new production of Euripides’ Medea starring Sophie Okonedo and Ben Daniels now playing at London.
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