Review: Seattle Shake's MEDEA – A Shining Performance Disrupted by Gimmicks

Euripides' tragic title character in "Medea" is one of those parts that actresses give their eye teeth (or even sacrifice their children) to play. She's a strong and committed woman with a wildly emotional arc. So with a role such as this where it's really all up to the lead, for the rest of the production I find it best to follow the rule of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). Unfortunately director Kelly Kitchens and the folks at Seattle Shakespeare Company had other ideas with their current production as it was so laden down with their storytelling gimmicks that the story and the stunning lead performance became diluted.

It's one of the more famous of the Greek tragedies as Medea (Alexandra Tavares) is spurned by her husband Jason (Sylvester Foday Kamara) who has chosen to take a new wife for power's sake by wedding the daughter of King Kreon. If that weren't enough to push her over The Edge, Kreon (Peter Crook) has ordered Medea and her children exiled after Medea speaks out against the King and the new marriage. Medea convinces Kreon to allow her to stay one more day, which she uses to carry out her bloody revenge on the King, his daughter and more specifically Jason.

The gimmicks I mention start before the play even does as you enter the theater and are greeted with a low, rumbling and constant hum of bass that I'm sure was meant to establish a tone of tension and intensity but all it did for me was make me want to leave until they fixed what sounded like a short in the sound system. It's fine to establish that tone for a few minutes but doing it for the entire 30 minute preshow isn't tone, it's torture. Then the play begins and, as we hear Medea wailing in the back parts of the house, the children's' nurse comes out to deliver mounds of exposition. Now, Yadira Duarte as the nurse does a fine job emoting and keeping her speech lively but the problem is, half of it is in Spanish. Um, I only remember a little Spanish from high school and I doubt the majority of the audience does as well so if you're going to want to get across some important exposition maybe you make it in English. Just sayin'. OK so I started the show uncomfortable and irritated and then segued into confused and then a cadre of women emerged on stage. I assume they were the Greek Chorus of the play except they kept interacting with Medea, which is not so chorus like. And to top it all off, they would sing many of their moments combined with deliberate hand movements which resembled a combination of sign language and "Vogue"-ing.

All of this felt less like good storytelling and more like insider moments. The hand movements may have meant something specific to the people in the show but we don't know your sign language. The Spanish may have worked for them but again; it's that lack of getting the message across. And the singing did nothing to move anything along and just kept taking me out of the show.

Tavares does truly shine in her role. Her layered and nuanced performance shows how well she's able to take a character arc, even one that's known to be a journey through madness, and make it sympathetic. But that one role (which, outside the singing, is 90% of the show) kept getting interrupted by these gimmicks keeping you from truly investing in her performance.

So for me the one truly shining performance kept getting dimmed by all the superfluousness making for a watered down and confused night. And so with my three letter rating system I give Seattle Shakespeare Company's production of "Medea" a disappointed MEH-. If you have to explain your vision and methods in the program then they don't really work. Just tell the story.

"Medea" from Seattle Shakespeare Company performs at the Center Theatre through November 13th. For tickets or information contact the Seattle Shakespeare Company box office at 206-733-8222 or visit them online at www.seattleshakespeare.org.

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