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Grief and groans

Lloyd Evans

Wednesday, 6th February 2008

Purgatorio
Arcola

Happy Now?
Cottesloe

The Lover/The Collection
Comedy

Purgatorio. Hardly a seductive title and I confess it was curiosity rather than enthusiasm that dragged me to the Arcola in Hackney to see how Ariel Dorfman (best known for his 1992 play Death and the Maiden) had handled the Medea myth. His update transplants the characters to a therapy unit and the play opens with Medea under analysis describing in lacerating detail how she killed her children. Confusingly, her cell is furnished with a kitchen knife which she occasionally brandishes in the analyst’s face. More confusingly, he shrugs the threat aside as if she were waving a lollipop at him. Then the roles are reversed. Medea becomes the shrink and Jason becomes the shrunk and she subjects him to a very cross cross-examination. Therapist Medea seems even more aggressive than murderess Medea and for much of the time it’s unclear whether the characters realise they’re interrogating their former partners. That’s fine. All part of the tease.

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