{"id":1153,"date":"2015-10-08T16:03:46","date_gmt":"2015-10-08T15:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/?p=1153"},"modified":"2015-10-08T20:39:03","modified_gmt":"2015-10-08T19:39:03","slug":"sweet-enough-for-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/2015\/10\/sweet-enough-for-you.html","title":{"rendered":"Sweet enough for you?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Medea<\/a><\/p>\n

Advance booking for the theatre can backfire. I saw Medea<\/a><\/em> at London’s Almeida Theatre yesterday, so missed the UK\u2019s major television event<\/a> \u2013 the final<\/a> of the Great British Bake Off<\/em>. Medea<\/em> was, yeah, interesting and all \u2013 but it didn\u2019t produce the swirls of joy and empathetic tears provoked by Nadiya Hussain\u2019s three-tiered victory. I have only just left BBC i-player, my cheeks a lemon drizzle of emotion.<\/p>\n

But the cosy baking show and comfortless tragedy share a universe \u2013 especially in Rachel Cusk\u2019s new, contemporary-set version. Her Medea is a writer of, we gather, well-regarded literary fiction , whose actor husband has deserted her for a tycoon\u2019s pampered daughter. The family home is being sold from under her in the divorce settlement. Pace<\/em> Andrew Haydon<\/a>, who describes Ian McNeil\u2019s set as \u2018a slightly deconstructed version of a flat I wouldn\u2019t mind living in\u2019, I couldn\u2019t settle in this cold, sombre-smart pad, all dark wood and hard furnishing, where characters perch with varying levels of discomfort on the edge of a vast steel basin. It\u2019s a house, but no home.<\/p>\n

Not one of us<\/strong><\/p>\n

Crucially, bake-off chums, there\u2019s no visible kitchen. Whatever Medea has been cooking up in her nest, it sure isn\u2019t cupcakes. No domestic goddess, it\u2019s no wonder she seems \u2018not\u2026 one of us\u2019 to the chorus of yummy mummies, a mumsnet coven of complacency, disapproval and subsumed fear. We\u2019ve met these women before in Cusk\u2019s writing: they were excoriated<\/a> in a borderline insufferable article about her brief membership of a book group. \u2018I sat there wondering how the reality of life could have no power over them,\u2019 she sighs. This produced a sharp response<\/a> from a fellow-member, recalling that Cusk \u2018projected her own literary insecurities on to the group and then browbeat us with eulogies of safe (ie long-dead) authors\u2026 She cast far more gloom than Chekhov ever managed and precipitated a rash of resignations.\u2019<\/p>\n

Cusk, who believes in revenge by manuscript \u2013 her Medea<\/em> denouement depends on the cataclysmic potential of a witty screenplay \u2013 makes the chorus a robotic quintet of stayathome judgement, dependent on their husbands, drawing in the wagons around their comfort. This smothering brood of school-gate disdain is unlike Euripdes\u2019 sympathetic chorus, who recognise Medea\u2019s plight but fear for her.<\/p>\n

Kate Fleetwood\u2019s\u00a0heroine also has to face a vicious, shallow husband (Justin Salinger), a disapproving mother (Amanda Boxer), the tycoon determined to push her into penury (Andy de la Tour). Even the gay friend who abets her revenge (Richard Cant) and the Brazilian cleaner who has troubles of her own (Michele Austin) tend to lecture rather than listen. Medea bides her time through these duologues \u2013 Fleetwood brilliantly locks down the steel planes of her face, bones tautening as she tries not to thump anyone.<\/p>\n

\"Nadiya<\/a>

Nadiya Hussain<\/p><\/div>\n

Why do we watch the Great British Bake Off<\/em>? Charlotte Higgins<\/a>\u2019 analysis pins it on a fundamental niceness. Baking is a nice thing to do, done by kind people, in a lovely tent decorated with bunting. It\u2019s true, the kind-hearted spirit that settles like a dusting of icing sugar isn\u2019t for everyone. Remember the witch in Sondheim\u2019s Into the Woods<\/em><\/a>, sneering, \u2018You\u2019re so \u2013 nice.\/<\/em> You\u2019re not good, you\u2019re not bad, you\u2019re just nice.\u2019<\/em> And who\u2019s she addressing? The baker<\/em>. Of course she is.<\/p>\n

So why do we watch Medea?<\/em> Cusk\u2019s heroine periodically challenges us about this: often silent in the face of speechifying, she then turns on us, scoffing that she feels pain so that we don\u2019t have to. Fleetwood\u2019s glint-eyed, feline-wide features \u2013 at once broad and angular \u2013 and her smile like a set of knives, refuse easy empathy. She hugs the pain that wound sher. She snarls if we approach.<\/p>\n

Even the cuddliest wife and mother can arouse suspicion. One reason why Medea should resonate \u2013 though too often recessive in stage productions, and wholly absent in Cusk\u2019s version \u2013 is her foreignness. An immigrant, Medea came to Corinth for love, to make a new life, to flee persecution \u2013 and her new home is never quite welcoming. Nadiya Hussain, despite being British born, attracts similar fears. How could a Muslim woman in a hijab win a contest for British cookery? \u2018It\u2019s full-scale ideological warfare,\u2019 says the Sun<\/em> columnist Ally Ross<\/a>. Motherhood makesher oddly unsettling. What alien ideology is stashed beneath her sugar-dusted kitchen surfaces? What values is she spoon-feeding us along with the lemon drizzle?<\/p>\n

\"Kate<\/a>

Kate Fleetwood as Medea. Photo: Marc Brenner<\/p><\/div>\n

The real spoilers start here, so look away if you\u2019d rather. Cusk\u2019s Medea doesn\u2019t poison her rival and immolate her children. She walks away. She just leaves a life that makes no workable sense. In Rupert Goold’s production, McNeil\u2019s back wall rises to reveal a flame-red mountainscape (a nod to Euripides\u2019 dragon-drawn chariot, perhaps), and Fleetwood shovels earth into the stairwell of her former home while the mums and other voices continue to talk at and about her. Finally, a hermaphrodite deity (Charlotte Randle, ballgown blonde on the right side, tuxedo on the left) relates the unconvincing aftermath of her departure.<\/p>\n

Medea<\/em> is often a little bit Doll\u2019s House<\/em> \u2013 though unlike Ibsen\u2019s Nora, who strides into the world, Fleetwood\u2019s heroine is leaving her unsatisfactory world behind. Leaving us too, because Cusk frames us as part of the problem \u2013 as petty-minded and timorous as any of the characters. The solipsistic scorn of which the writer is often accused<\/a> closes in like a fog. Only Medea can throw aside the sponges. Only she can live bravely. Only she can leave the tent.<\/p>\n

Follow David on Twitter: @mrdavidjays<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Advance booking for the theatre can backfire. I saw Medea at London’s Almeida Theatre yesterday, so missed the UK\u2019s major television event \u2013 the final of the Great British Bake Off. Medea was, yeah, interesting and all \u2013 but it didn\u2019t produce the swirls of joy and empathetic tears provoked by Nadiya Hussain\u2019s three-tiered victory. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[104,99,145,34,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-1153","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-almeida","9":"tag-medea","10":"tag-rupert-goold","11":"tag-theatre","12":"tag-tragedy","13":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1153"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1161,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1153\/revisions\/1161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}