Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Mairi-Claire Kennedy, Nathon Bibby, Faye Caddick, Rebecca Howard, Maria Hutchinson, Vicky Lodge, Natalie J. Romero, Mikyla Jane Durkan, Samantha Walton, Gillian Paterson-Fox, Alan Bowyer, Callum Wright, Gary Watson, Iffan Wyn James, Yahya Baggash.

It is a story that still resonates, still has the power to send tremor like Earthquakes through any who see it and simply turns established thought upside down and inverts the power of femininity and the female form. Euripides’ Medea is a tale so huge that in modern day thought, it still provokes the question that surely a woman cannot take the life of a child, especially her own child and yet as the news shows, Medea is not alone in the most brutal of acts.

To take on Euripides most powerful of works takes courage and commitment, it is not a play that can be just be put on with abandon, it needs careful planning and soul searching on behalf the actress playing the part, it cannot be just merely staged with actor’s prowess alone.

For Liverpool’s Burjesta Theatre, this is arguably the most demanding of all the plays they have put on for their audiences, one that dips its own fist headlong and with force into its own chest and rip out the still beating heart and if played wrongly can be seen to knock hubris itself. Under the constant, watchful gaze of Director Julian Bond, Medea is captured for what it truly is, a tale of huge morality and by staging it for one day inside the iconic Bombed Out Church of St. Lukes, worlds seemed to eerily collide and added to the intense feeling of insecurity and fear that the play demands.

Fear is perhaps the best way to describe Medea, it is a watchword in the notion to be wary of the woman who takes life easily. The thought that a woman could do such a thing, even now makes news headlines, poisoning a husband yes, though not palatable is perhaps understandable, but to take the life of her own children? Murdering those she bought into the world with no thought of retribution, just guided by insane rage and calculated revenge, the world somehow becomes a darker place and for Medea, it is the darkest place of all.

To play the part has been the reserve for all the performances of Mikyla Jane Durkan, however it shows the respect that this wonderful actor has for her fellow performers that inside St. Lukes, her understudy Mairi-Claire Kennedy gave an extraordinary portrayal of the woman known only as one capable of infanticide.

In a role that has everything riding on it, that weighs down an actor with the sheer volume of lines to learn but can elevate them to greatness if framed just right, Mairi-Claire Kennedy propelled herself with determination, courage and supreme ability, the act of terrifying aggression never far from the mask of beauty raging with skill upon her face and when coupled with the tremendous Greek Chorus on show.

In a long line of excellent works provided by Burjesta Theatre, this piece of theatre is to be seen as a pinnacle, a towering achievement of staging a notoriously disturbing play, it is a huge congratulations to all involved in making one that lives up to the ideal laid down 2,500 years ago.

Ian D. Hall