At the Waterfront Theatre
April 6, 1999

JONES

h dear. I had no idea that
QO classical Greek theatre was so

stiff. Not consistently so, mind
you, but pretty darned woody far
more often than I would
have liked. Rather
surprising, really,
considering the passionate
storyline of betrayal and
murderous revenge, but
maybe my reaction stems
from an ill-informed view
of the early days of
theatre. I know that I
found the ‘mask always
towards your audience’
device frequently annoying
rather than dramatic (at
best I could say that it was
dramatically annoying).
The otherworldly
detachment of the chorus (and to a
fair degree of Tanja Dixon Warren’s
Medea herself) seemed more suited to
an afternoon of bridge and watercress
sandwiches than to the
quintessential ‘he done her wrong’
tale.

On the positive side, there is
apparently life after art school, as
evidenced by the two escapees from
the Emily Carr College of the Artfully
Resigned listed in the program.
Randy Agar’s masks are suitably
cipherlike for the chorus (as a
smooth slate to project implied emo-
tions on, I believe), or wonderfully
overblown, most notably for Marco
Soriano’s horrified Messenger. The
costume design by Don Chambers is
interesting, if a little higgledy-pig-
gledy stylewise. Personally, I love

 

lamé, but I wasn’t too crazy about
the incongruity of the shiny shirt
sported by the blood-thirsty mama,
and a similar complaint goes out to
the trench coated anomaly of Jason.
The gold braided cuffs were nice, but
still. I found the Nurse’s toga-type
costume to be the most fitting, per-
haps because it at least had a defi-
nite place in the play. Maybe if only
one time or style had been drawn
from then the overall look of the cos-
tumes would have been stronger.

 

Set designer Steacy Harper has
done a lovely job, hanging filmy,
richly coloured strips of fabric from
the lighting grid right down to the
stage floor, staggering their place-
ment in a wide semi-circle facing and
embracing the audience.
Choreographer Andrea Hughes
has come up with any number of
photogenic poses for her be-
masked trio; however, I was
somewhat put off by the distinct
sensation that ‘posing’ was exact-
ly what I was watching. Again,
this is likely an essential element
of classical theatrics that I just
don’t get, but it struck me as
altogether too forced.

Now the audio design was
sorta weird, and fell into two cate-
gories: pre-recorded sounds, and

May 1999 the Other Press

sounds made live by the chorus.
Normally I'd gravitate almost auto-
matically towards the live music, but
some of the notes hit by the chorus,
deliberately sharp I'm sure, were
downright painful. Sure, disturbing
this play is meant to be, but does it
have to honk? As for the recorded
score, it was sparingly used, and sub-
tly well done in the few spots where
it made an appearance.

A bit of a mixed bag, with some
moments coming in strong and chill-
ing, such as the
Messenger’s recount-
ing of the horrid
deaths of the king
and princess, and
others seeming oddly
flat, such as most of
Jason's confronta-
tions with Medea,
this show is like the
inevitable pennies
found in the bottom
of every Halloween
sack. Useful, the
basis of a spreading
system of theatrical
currency, but not
nearly as much of a thrill as when
the world was young, and a few
pieces of copper could still get a
handful of ju-jubes.

 

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