GO - EURIPIDES' MEDEA
Coups de théâtre abound in this haunting adaptation from wunderkind director Michael Burke and his Indianapolis-based paperStrangers Performance Group. Burke, who also choreographs and designs the show's brilliantly inventive feathered costumes, set pieces, video projections and lighting, pares Euripides' text to its brutal, psychic core. Melissa Fenton's sympathetic Medea is a tour de force of blistering anguish and unbridled rage spilling into infanticidal madness. Kellen York's aloof Jason is the emotionally detached bastard who done her wrong. An eerie, wraithlike chorus externalizes inner demons in ritualistic dance. And Burke's breathtakingly theatrical denouement is not to be missed. Dorie Theater at the Complex, 6476 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A.; Thurs.-Sun., 7 p.m.; through June 27. (866) 811-4111. (Bill Raden/L.A. Weekly)
http://www.laweekly.com/2010-06-24/stage/theater-reviews-hollywood-fringe-festival/3
Hollywood Fringe Festival Review from LA Theatre Review:
Eurpides’ Medea at the Complex Theatre
by Rachel Jenkins~
The arrival of the chorus in the entrance way to the theatre instantaneously brings us into their world where we find TV static projected over a still-standing Jason (Kellen York) & Medea (Melissa Fenton). Using a combination of Eurpides’ text, text adaptation, multimedia, choreographed movement & a whole lot of feathers we are taken through the pain of Jason’s betrayal, Medea’s response and an extremely visually stimulating representation of the emotions that drives her actions.
Director Michael Burke made an interesting & powerful decision by having the children represented by smiling, hanging dummies upstage center. Always there. Always watching. The chorus was perfectly in sync, used in a way that would have made the Greeks proud. Telling the story, echoing what needed emphasized and breaking off to play roles as needed. Fenton created a multilayered Medea that allowed for understanding & sympathy even as she stood over her gutted children. On the other hand, York needs to go. He did not speak a sincere word. He felt nothing & neither did we. His lack of anything simply boosts my praise of Fenton for making so much out of the nothing he gave her.
This retelling, without stating why, provides answers to how a mother could murder her children, a question one often still has at the end of seeing Medea.Simply stated, Burke’s Medea is new, beautiful & stimulating. Go find out how such a story can be told so well in so little space & time.
Medea plays June 25, 26 & 27 at 7pm.
http://www.latheatrereview.com/2010/06/25/fringe-day-nine-friday-june-25/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=fringe-day-nine-friday-june-25
