By Susan Mulford, Boston and Beyond
In our everyday world of disrupted families, what often lies in the ruins, after, more often than not, the husband has traded to a younger mate, is a woman who has been stripped of her self worth, loss the support of shallow friends and family…and who is left to hold the children and a sense of home in tact.
IRNE award-winner Juliet Bowler stumbles into the theatre as the harried mom that “just needs a night out.” She has come to see the play, MEDEA, the bloody Greek Tragedy that has been interpreted as a sympathetic portrayal of Medea’s struggle to take charge of her own life in a male-dominated world. That interpretation is a tough thought to embrace since Medea murders her husband’s Princess bride plus slaughters their two children in an icy, “pay-back’ initiative. She wanted to hurt Jason (yes, that Jason, the hero who fought to obtain the golden fleece and did other amazing feats) by causing him a level of pain that she had been experiencing by his rejection and her isolation.
Ironically we find out that the theater going woman/ mother also married a Jason, who left her…and, like Medea, they have two children. Directed by Elizabeth Ramirez, Ms. Bowler gives an absolutely brilliant performance as she begins to usurp the play with her own stories including tales of losses she is forced to endure. She is an abandon mother who finds herself wrestling with the darker corners of single parenting. As theatre blends with reality and she finds herself segueing between the role of Medea and her own contemporary consciousness, she is forced to precariously balance on a fine line of guilt, grief and anger. But is she Medea….or NOT?!
Flat Earth Theatre presents, at The Mosesian Center for the Arts, 321 Arsenal St. in Watertown, this thoughtful and highly unconventional Not Medea which takes a new and darkly humorous approach to the ancient tale from the perspective and all to often circumstances of a modern mother. With Gene Dante as Jason and Cassandra Meyer performing as the Greek Chorus, it is a truly outstanding concept production that may resonate with a large percentage of an audience. Tickets are available online at www.flatearththeatre.com