"The theatre is a toilet," writes director Dylan Tighe in the programme for his multimedia assault on Medea, which does make you wonder why he is so keen to work in one. Just like the bleach that Helen Schoene's brooding, immigrant Medea whizzes up in a blender, Tighe's approach to this work turns out to be a slow-acting poison, one that lasts for 76 minutes - every second of which is counted out on a digital display on one of the on-stage screens. It's like having teeth pulled slowly without anaesthetic, while the dentist tells you exactly how long it is taking.
Tighe never comes close to translating his academic ideas into engaging theatre. He throws everything he's ever thought, seen or read at it, including Roland Barthes, Lars von Trier, Semiotics for Beginners, nationalism, a singing canary, the nature of identity and most of the contents of a hardware store. And he seems convinced that doing things extremely slowly imbues them with more significance.
There are traces of an interesting show, most particularly in Seán Óg's soundtrack, which uses found sound to eerie effect. The performers, Schoene in particular, have real presence; but the piece's overwhelming self-consciousness and sense of self-importance (its belief that we need help to understand Barthes or Medea) makes for a suffocating evening that is both banal and pretentious. Halfway through, the canary gets immolated. How I envied it.
