“Medea Material” Reviewed by Jacob Davis

***** Just in time for Halloween is a haunting, modern take on an ancient tragedy. As part of their new repertory system, Trap Door Theatre is reviving their production of Heiner Müller’s Medea Material, directed by Max Truax and adapted by Sarah Tolan-Mee. Featuring one of Greek mythology’s most toxic couples, Müller’s version of the sorceress Medea’s betrayal by her lover Jason and her subsequent murder of their children is a memory play set amid a ruinous war. Truax’s direction blends the ancient Greek chorus with modern ensemble casting, allowing many Medeas and Jasons to co-exist in a story about confusion of identity and selfish love.

The story opens in Corinth, near the end of Jason and Medea’s relationship. Müller represents their adventures as having been basically a crime spree and the regime changes they’ve effected throughout the region as devastating, ongoing upheavals. Both of them are hollowed out and want the chaos to stop, and each resents the other for bringing out the worst in them, but only Jason has been offered asylum by marrying the Corinthian king’s daughter. At first, Medea seems willing to consider that it might be rational for Jason to seduce another princess, although she judges it a miscalculation. But no, Jason says, he truly wants Medea out of his life, and he considers the two sons they had ample repayment for when Medea murdered her brother for Jason’s benefit. Medea is astonished that he thinks their children were his gift to her instead of the other way around, but this gives her the idea for which she would become infamous.

Truax’s staging features six Medeas and three Jasons, the latter of whom double as the doomed sons. At any given moment, one from each group of actors will step to the forefront while the others serve as a chorus, so while there are only two speaking characters, we always get a rich sense of their internal desires, the faces they present to each other, and what they symbolize in each other’s minds. For example, a dynamic that is also emphasized by the choreography and Rachel Sypniewski’s costume design is that Jason’s strength as a hero came from his ability to seduce more powerful people, whereas Medea was almost always the one utilizing violence. Jason even hands her the box of poisons at the top of the show with a flirtatious smirk, but while Medea never stops lusting for him and admires him for his wiles, we see from the body language of Jason’s doubles how much constantly doing this needles at his sense of inadequacy.

One of the pleasures of watching a remounted show is how its ideas have gotten more developed. However, a major strength of this production that it retains from its original run is Danny Rocket’s sound design. Music is of great importance in a Greek tragedy, helping ease us into a non-naturalistic presentation, and that’s even more true of East German social plays. The adaptation doesn’t focus on the gods or royal bloodlines, but it does mention modern objects among Colchis’s rubble, and at one point Jason even asides something about one of his past political schemes having involved the military of Yugoslavia. There’s a lot of character complexity packed into a running time of a mere hour, and despite the specificity of their circumstances in classical mythology, Medea and Jason’s story has resonated for millennia in many cultures because they’re much more their own downfall than they are victims of the gods. It would probably be a good idea to take a brief refresher on the mythology before seeing Medea Material, since the play doesn’t explain much about what happened before Corinth. However, the show being revived during the Halloween season is serendipitous, since besides being mythic, psychological, and political, it’s also a show that is filled with horror imagery and restless ghosts.

“Medea Material” will continue at Trap Door Theatre, 1655 W Cortland Ave, Chicago, thru October 26, at the following times:
Thursdays: 8:00 pm
Fridays: 8:00 pm
Saturdays: 8:00 pm

Running time is sixty minutes with no intermission.

Tickets are $30 with 2 for 1 admission on Thursdays. Special group rates are available.

Visit Trap Door Theatre or call 773-384-0494 or email boxofficetrapdoor@gmail.com

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