Everybody is larger than life in Michael Boyd’s tremendous staging of Liz Lochhead’s play, still queasily contentious 2,500 years after the Euripides original. In one sense, this is literally the case. Tom Piper’s set is a catwalk that overshadows the audience as we stand like a mob gathered to witness an execution. Dissecting the main hall of the Hub, it compels us to look up at the actors, making us more like acolytes than equals.
Even the 10-strong female chorus has a grandeur. They emerge from within the crowd – a nice democratic touch – but when they climb on to the stage, talking as one, they too stand above us.
But, more than that, the protagonists in this bloody family battle are metaphorically large. No more so than Adura Onashile’s formidable Medea who, having been given a slow build-up in Lochhead’s rich and spiky version from 2000, emerges from a door in a rusting metal wall with an awesome authority. She achieves it not through grandstanding or histrionics, but an unerring air of certainty.
She seems to taste Lochhead’s poetry in her mouth, relishing each word, be it the grand statements of intent or the funny shifts in tone to sarcasm or deadpan wit. You can see why the locals regard her as an outsider, yet this is a woman who would stand out in any company.
Anne Lacey’s nurse and Adam Robertson’s manservant have similar presence – Lacey, in particular, holding the room with her vibrant articulation of Lochhead’s Scots – but it is when the adversaries stride in, ferociously backlit by lighting designer Colin Grenfell, that the stakes become clear. Where Stephen McCole’s Kreon is bullish and assertive, Robert Jack’s Jason, in navy-blue cotton suit, is all charm and moderation (“It’s not what you think!”), the better to disguise his gaslighting. He is so secure in his male dominance, he needs no show of strength.
But in this battle for status, Onashile is more than his match. Twice they kiss, both times acts of aggression. As percussionist James Jones adds an unsettling edge to an already uneasy standoff and Alana Jackson as love rival Glauke makes herself easy prey, the National Theatre of Scotland production builds to an ending of operatic intensity.
