The Medea Effect by Suzie Bastien, translated by Nadine Desrochers

Ada is a mother who has forgotten her child during an emotional trauma. Ugo's childhood fear has come to pass, his mother has forgotten him. The Medea Effect is an emotional roller-coaster ride launching the audience into abstract heights and plunging them into emotional depths. It is also an emotional tug-of-war between two isolated minds over the same subject: the mother.

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Talisman Theatre, Théâtre Lachapelle,Montreal, QC 2012;
Talisman Theatre, CAM en tournee (Quebec Tour), Segal Studio, Segal Centre, Montreal, QC, 2015.

Director

Text / Texte : Suzie Bastien;
Translator / Traduction : Nadine Desrochers;
Director / Mise en scène : Emma Tibaldo.

ACTORS / ACTEURS :
Hugo : James Loye;
Ada : Jennifer Morehouse.

DESIGNERS / CONCEPTEURS :
Set / Décor : Lyne Paquette;
Costumes / Costume : Fruzsina Lànyi;
Lighting / Éclairage : Angeline st-Amour;
Sound / Son : Matthew Waddell;
Composer / Compositeur : Michael Leon;
Movement / Mouvement : Rasili Botz;
Video / Vidéo : Jean Ranger (Mindroots).

The Medea Effect hits all the right notes in tragic tale

MONTREAL - Talisman Theatre has chosen a tough row to hoe.
Its mandate is to produce French-language Quebec plays that have been translated into English. Unfortunately, few of them survive the transition in a form that’s appealing to anglophone audiences.

Suzie Bastien’s The Medea Effect, however, is an exception. It’s contemporary and universal, inspired by Pirandello as well as Euripides. And it offers terrific acting opportunities to a mature woman who knows how to command the stage and a younger man who knows how to hold his own against her.

For this production, director Emma Tibaldo (also artistic and executive director of Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal) has found an ideal pair. Jennifer Morehouse is a local actor who has worked across Canada but is too seldom seen on Montreal stages. Éloi ArchamBaudoin is a bilingual graduate of the French section of the National Theatre School who drew attention last season in Talisman’s Coma Unplugged and in Centaur Theatre’s Intimate Apparel (as the lovestruck Jewish tailor).

The Medea Effect begins in a darkened theatre within the actual darkened theatre and the woman’s query: “Is anyone there?”

Of course, there is someone. But Ugo, the weary theatre director (ArchamBaudoin), has had a long day of auditioning actors for his upcoming production of Medea, by Euripides. He has no idea who the woman is, doesn’t care, and wants to go home. When he makes himself known, he asks her if she had an appointment. No. Is she a member of Actors’ Equity? No.

He tries to get rid of her in the nicest possible way, explaining the basics: “You can’t just show up, decide that you’re right for this part, you can’t impose yourself on me. Not like this.”

Yet she persists. And he resists, until, little by little, they begin to listen to each other and feed off each other emotionally. Eventually he recognizes her as Ada, a noted actor who actually starred in Medea 10 years before at the same theatre, and who famously walked out in mid-performance never to return.

The last thing he needs is an unreliable prima donna for a production of a play that he really hasn’t grasped yet on a personal level. But she intrigues him with her tenacity, her genuine interest in what he has to say, and her obvious acting talent. When she asks why he wants to direct Medea, he admits he doesn’t know.

As it turns out, both of them have their own reasons, rooted in personal experience, for being fascinated with the play. And gradually we learn what they are. But this being a Medea-inspired play, she’s the one with the explosive story that we lean forward in our seats to hear. And, yes, it does have certain parallels to the Ancient Greek myth, which actually predates Euripides, of a scorned woman who murders her children.

The stage is furnished only with a ladder, a few theatre seats, and a back-wall screen used to flash images as Ada talks of her travels and the horrific incident that nearly destroyed her.

This is actor’s theatre (with director Tibaldo as rigorous coach) that hits the motherlode of gravitas required for tragedy. Morehouse is a marvel. Catharsis delivered. Bravo!

Pat Donnelly, Montreal Gazette

"The Medea Effect slowly builds on its dark tones and moods until finally brought to the bone-chilling climax, effectively drawing the audience into the very depths of the characters’ inevitable unhinging. Everyone, from actor to viewer alike, is left marked, as though they’ve just barely managed to come out the other side."--Synden Hope-Johnston, February 5, 2015.

SÉQUENCES : "Si l’on en juge par le poids éloquent des mots, la psychologie incontestablement humaniste des réparties, la teneur vigoureuse du propos et la force des échanges entre deux êtres à la recherche d’une âme, la traduction de L’Effet Médée, de Suzie Bastien, par Nadine Desrochers, est un tour de force admirable."--Élie Castiel, February 4, 2015.

META winner, META nominated

Michael Leon