DESPOILED SHORE/
It may be too early in the year to say, but if you’re going to see one completely obscure avant-garde treatment of a classical myth this year, this could be the one!
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I have, however, apprehended the basics. The main characters are Jason and Medea. The phlegmatic Jason wants to marry Creon’s daughter. This makes Medea very jealous and (in this production) exceedingly strident. But Jason is preoccupied by war, and he seems rather cynical about it too. He is definitely what the existentialists call disengaged. This perhaps explains why he looks off into space when he talks to Medea. Or maybe he just doesn’t like to look at her. Or else Jason and Medea occupy parallel universes. Medea, on the other hand, is much easier to read. She’s pissed off and she’s going to get even. In a flourish of witchcraft, Medea conjures the death of her rival, Creon’s daughter. This murder is staged as an interpretive dance, and it’s quite convincing. The centrifugal force alone is enough to cause a cerebral hemorrhage. Fortunately, the actress playing Creon’s daughter seemed unharmed at curtain call.
Nevertheless, Helweg knows how to create an arresting moment. The opening scene is especially promising. Ponderous, patient music sets the mood. The stage is empty. You hear something like the rustling of newspaper behind you. And just as you’re about to turn around and tell some dork to put away his Sun-Times, the chorus enters, two by two, carrying bags stuffed with litter. They ceremoniously dump their trash on the small, central, shrinelike platform, gathering about the garbage like suppliants making offerings. And, looking closer at the shrine itself, you realize that it’s made of trash, painted black and bronze to give it either the look of antiquity or the austerity of an expressionist sculpture. I really liked this scene. But it was immediately followed by a chaotic strobe light interpolation, and then the Beach Boys, and, well . . .
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Scott Stockwell.
