BLUEPRINT MEDEA (Finborough Theatre)***

 

By Cal

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgCzWFZ5wzE&t=7s

Link to subtitled version https://www.scenesaver.co.uk/production/blueprint-medea-subtitled/

Available until: 14^th November 2020

Trigger warning: references to sexual violence. 18+

Blueprint Medea was the Finborough for Free release for July and now it’s back. It’s a good play, but the sound quality isn’t that great so if you might want to watch it with subtitles on Scenesaver. You’ll need to register, but it won’t cost you anything.

I didn’t know the legend of Medea when I first watched this play. Apparently, this is a story which everyone knows, but ‘everyone’ did not include me. Knowing the story would probably help. It is a difficult play to follow anyway, switching back and forth between the past and present, which some sections symbolised rather than acted out and others hinted at rather than fully explained. Having an idea of what is happening does help to make sense of some of these moments (it did make more sense to me the second time I watched it). But it is still quite a complicated play and even people who know the story have had trouble following it.

Blueprint Medea, written and directed by Julia Pascal, resets Medea’s story in the present day. Medea is a Kurdish freedom fighter who leaves her country in order to seek asylum in the UK. Volunteer Suzy (Amanda Maud) helps her to find a job as a cleaner, which leads to her first meeting with the attractive and charming Jason (Max Rinehart), known as Mohammed to his family. At first, the relationship goes well. Medea appreciates Jason’s confidence and swagger and he, like many people in the play, is intrigued by her mixture of innocence and calm understanding of the world. Medea seems to know everything and nothing all at once.

Adapting an existing story can go two ways. It can shed new light on an old story and show that some things haven’t changed, even now. Or it can restrict an interesting new story, forcing it to go in directions which don’t seem right. Blueprint Medea had moments of one and moments of the other. It shows so much of the life of an asylum seeker – the reasons why they seek asylum, the difficulties in attaining it and questions to what extent it is really possible to belong (though I’m sure that would vary from person to person, depending on their own personal experience. I can relate to it a little as I know what it’s like to be an outsider, even in my own biological family, but there are even more ways in which Medea’s life is different from mine). It is interesting and rather sobering to know the ways in which things haven’t changed and Medea’s original story wouldn’t have shown this as clearly.

But at the same time, an original story could have allowed the story to go in a different direction and have a different ending. The ending to this play, although almost certainly expected by those who know the story, came out of nowhere, a bit, for me. Medea is angry and hurting, but the fierce and independent yet kind and gentle Medea of Blueprint Medea seemed like an entirely different character from the person we saw at the end. Perhaps if the play had been longer (it’s just 83 minutes), the change in Medea could have been shown more clearly, but although it’s undoubtedly the ‘correct’ ending for the story, it didn’t feel like the ‘right’ ending to me.

Ruth D’Silva is majestic as Medea and has a magnetism about her, even when she is at her most unassuming, though there is steel under the surface which she shows when necessary. It is easy to see why so many people are drawn to her - Suzy, Jason, even her love rival Glauke (Shaniaz Hama-Ali). It’s an impressive performance and although it probably is a bit different if you know what’s going to happen, I found Medea a likeable and admirable person.

Max Rinehart is a warm and playful Jason, cheeky and flirtatious but gentle enough to break through Medea’s reserve – there is never any feeling that he browbeats her into their first date. Amanda Maud is a determined and tenacious Suzy but still brings across her kindness and desire to help. As she is the first person to show Medea kindness, it is perhaps fitting that she also appears as Medea’s mother. Both characters love Medea, but are only able to do so much. Shaniaz Hama-Ali is a warm-hearted Glauke, while Tiran Aakel gives a powerful performance as Jason’s father.

The play shows a lot about the ways in which people are trapped by expectations, whether those expectations are legal, religious or simply what society expects. I think that’s something we can all relate to up to a point.