This searing two-hander re-tells a famous Greek tragedy with the focus firmly and very effectively on the little children who were innocent victims of their memorably murderous mother.

For 75 fascinating, absorbing, amusing and disturbing minutes, we join Jason and Medea in their endless private Hell, as they try yet again to explain to their sons - and each other - just how their tragedy unfolded.  For those who don't already know the story, these graphic horrors of betrayal and revenge are shocking reminders of the darker sides of human nature.

What is really compelling about the deceptively simple staging - on a bare white background, in plain and direct language, with all parts played by just two actors - is the way in which they fully involve the audience in the thought processes of the main characters.

The result is a perceptive and alarmingly modern insight into the devastating power of perverted love and twisted logic. A fabulous story, and powerful theatre. Venue Magazine

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The easy winner as the best play at this year's Fringe is Medea.

Medea is magnificent, there's no other word for it. In this play of a crime against nature and its provocations, Bill Buffery and Gill Nathanson pull out all the stops.

Nathanson's Medea is calculating and passionate all at the same time, and even when she addresses the women of Corinth, she has all the style of a great trial lawyer. She also has "violence in her soul" and it leads her to a place where few women have gone: she murders her children. It seems impossible in the saying and while Nathanson makes it understandable, not even her formidable acting skills can make it acceptable.

Buffery, too, puts in an astonishing performance as he attempts to rationalise his abandonment of Medea and his two children. He oozes that combination of sleaze and self-satisfaction that we have come to expect in politicians, from Bill Clinton to Tony Blair.

One other thing. Medea isn't just written with the precision of a scalpel and acted with exquisite detail and emotion, it is also one of the most beautifully designed plays I've seen in a decade of fringe reviewing. From the opening tableau, with Medea perched on a promontory like a dark thought contemplating its own existence, and with Jason rolled up in a cocoon of white fabric, through the use of shadows projected on a white background, to the wash of red lighting that announces Medea's unspeakable crime, this play finds the look that blends perfectly with the language and action.

Did I say unspeakable crime? The triumph of this production is precisely that it articulates our deepest fears and gives voice to that part of the human soul that we want buried forever. Do anything you can to see this play. Robert Enright  CBC Winnipeg

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Jason and Medea are in limbo, haunted by their murdered children's need to know how and why everything went so disastrously wrong - and however often they explain, we know that these two are condemned to an eternity of explanations.

Messengers, kings, old women, servants - and of course Medea and Jason - are all played with absolute conviction by the two actors, Gill Nathanson and Bill Buffery. They slide effortlessly from one character to another with just the addition of a shawl or jacket.

But it's as the major characters that their potent talent explodes on to the stage. Jason is every inch the vain, complacent, weak and self-justifying king that nearly was; now living in exile and with his eye on the main chance (and a pretty young princess) he is dumping his wife to marry the king's daughter. Medea, the abandoned wife, is fury personified; in her absolute lust for revenge, no sacrifice is too great - including that of her own children.

This is a fascinating examination of weakness, greed, monstrous egos and evil; altogether an electrifying piece of theatre. Bath Chronicle

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A politician whose dick has a mind of its own. A powerful wife feared because she has too much political backbone. Offspring used as political pawns. Slick Willie and wife Hillary? The story of Jason and Medea reflects emotional and dramatic truths as old and basic to the human condition as ambition itself, captured in all its complex psychological wonder by Euripides and presented in a masterly adaptation by Gill Nathanson and Bill Buffery. Miss it at your peril. See Magazine

Gill Nathanson makes of this emotionally self-destructive act of vengeance a thoroughly modern study of a woman's insatiable rage and her unquenchable thirst for some kind of justice in a male-ordered universe. Edmonton Journal

 

Best Play: Medea - it was horrific, it was fantastic. Star Phoenix, Saskatoon

 

An ancient Greek tragedy? Possibly the best play I've ever seen at a Fringe. CBC Radio Edmonton

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The dramatic energy of the play is fuelled by the kind of moral dilemma beloved of Greek dramatists which is ultimately incapable of resolution.

Jason most obviously invites the audience's loathing. Politically ambitious, he abandons the exotic and intelligent Medea - and their two little children - for a nubile young replacement whgo happens to be the king's daughter.

Medea's original creator, Euripides, being something of a proto-feminist, our heroine eschews the victim's lot and plots a brutal revenge. Not content with murdering her husband's blonde plaything - and the king - she goes on to kill her own sons.

The re-working faithfully imitates Greek prototypes in both structure and content. Couched in the grand language of classical tragedy, the dialogue nevertheless remains fluid and dramatic.

Altogether a stark and powerful play - two hours of emotional pummelling. Western Morning News

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The clarity of this production is particularly appropriate for the students studying Euripides, who made up a large part of the audience, while there are a number of other interesting facets bolted on. In addition to lending meaning to such a terrible act of infanticide, the crisp dialogue explores a host of secondary themes, ranging from certain tenets of the yet-to-be-found Christian faith to political betrayal, the dangers of a too-civilised society, and the conflict between the sophisticate and the barbarian.

All this is put across with drive and purpose by Bill Buffery and Gill Nathanson in a production that is certainly educational - and entertaining into the bargain. The Stage

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Medea lives in a hell beyond comprehension.

Stranded in a white limbo, again and again she must answer the question of the children she murdered. "Why did you kill us mother? We don't understand. Tell us again," they weep from beyond the grave.

And Medea, the outland sorceress who murdered the innocents, must again try and explain to their unquiet spirits why she committed this most hideous of crimes.

Medea's story is the most terrible of the Greek myths. When Jason comes to her home in Colchis looking for the Golden Fleece, she falls so passionately in love with him she assists the hero in recovering the Fleece, even to the extent of killing her half-brother. After a series of blood-drenched adventures, she lives with Jason in Corinth. After 10 years, Jason decides to ditch Medea for a younger woman - the daughter of the King. "I have no-one. I am no-one," she wails to the women of Corinth. Alone and abandoned, she goes mad and attacks Jason where he is most vulnerable - his lineage. She kills his two beloved children.

Multi Story shortens, contemporises and sets the work in a pure, white world made of sails, sheets and shawls. Medea (Gill Nathanson) dressed in black, unfolds out of the whiteness like a malevolent crow. Stunning. The innocent faces of her children shine from the whiteness. Nathanson's Medea ranges from coy seductress to raging madwoman, from driven angel of death to anguished mother who must face the horror of what she has done. Compassion, hatred, intelligence and madness wash across her face like waves on a Greek Isle. It's a stunning performance.

Bill Buffery is her equal in a series of roles ranging from the women of Corinth to Jason himself - who tries to persuade Medea he's only doing it for the future of their children.

This is classic Greek tragedy and requires the classic approach if we are to experience catharsis, the draining of all emotion that supposedly comes after a blood and thunder tale. Well, this is the tale and this is the company to tell it. The two performers are obviously trained - you can hear every nuance in the words as they are spoken with clarity and intelligence. Yet this is not an actorly exercise.

Raw emotions rage through the production. You will be involved, carried along and profoundly affected. I sat in the beer tent and stared into the middle distance for some time afterward. Colin Maclean  Edmonton Sun

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“Mis hijos realmente disfrutaron la presentación de Baby Iron Teeth –El Bebé Dientes de Hierro”

“Lo que más les impresionó fue la habilidad de los actores para interpretar diferentes personajes. Sería grandioso si tuviéramos más presentaciones de este tipo.”

“¡Fue absolutamente, fabuloso! ¡Que pesar no contar con más de esto mismo!”

“Pienso que la calidad fue excelente. Me siento muy complacida de que se haya realizado.”

“Que placer haber asistido a tan Buena representación teatral. Agradezco a todas las personas que estuvieron involucradas en la logística. Pienso que valió la pena el esfuerzo y la plata.”

El 24 y 25 de abril, el Colegio Bolívar disfrutó de tres presentaciones de una congregación artística Inglesa reconocida internacionalmente. El Multi Story Theatre Company, patrocinado por Dream on Productions en su tour por Latinoamérica, presentó Medea para las secciones de Middle y High School, así como Baby Iron Teeth para los Grados de 4º y 5º.

Gracias a Asopadres y al apoyo de los Directores de cada sección académica, tanto nuestros estudiantes como el cuerpo docente, tuvieron el placer de disfrutar de un evento cultural en vivo totalmente en inglés, el primero en muchos años para el colegio.

Baby Iron Teeth, es una adaptación de un cuento popular ruso, describe las aventuras del príncipe Iván, quien no puede hablar. Su MULTI STORY THEATER COMPANY & DREAM ON PRODUCTIONS hermana bebé sí puede, pero nació con un diente de hierro y ¡un apetito insaciable!

Multi Story utiliza canciones, ritmos y rimas para contar su historia. En sus presentaciones tuvieron jardineros, gigantes, arañas, un gran caballo negro y a la hermana menor del sol –Little sister of the Sun.

Medea se basa en la mitología Griega y sigue los juicios y el sufrimiento de Medea y de su esposo Jason (de Goleen Fleece fame) después de haber llegado a Corinto. Así la tetralogía que abordaba esta obra no le mereciera a Eurípides el ansiado premio del festival Dionysus en el que debutó, casi 2.500 años atrás, Medea ha resistido la prueba del tiempo, hasta convertirse en una grandiosa tragedia clásica griega.

The Multi-Story Theater Company fue creado en el 2000 por Bill Buffery y Gill Nathanson, dos increíblemente talentosos y versátiles actores, quienes interpretaron más de 15 personajes diferentes entre las dos obras que presentaron aquí. La compañía produce obras para niños, sus familias, estudiantes y audiencias adultas, así como programas con talleres de comprensión y proyectos a gran escala. Se presentan en teatros, centros de artes, centros comunales y colegios por todo el reino unido, además de realizar regularmente tours en el exterior – más recientemente por Suramérica.

La compañía está centralmente preocupada en hacer perdurar el poder del cuento y en comunicar las riquezas de las experiencias que las historias antiguas contenían, a nuevas audiencias, tanto jóvenes como adultas.

Esperamos que seamos capaces de proveer más eventos culturales como este en el futuro. THOMAS ROMPF, Coordinador Biblioteca

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