As a Greek, it is always both weird and interesting to watch works that draw from the Classics in Asian cinema, but this exact thing happened once more, this time in a stage play, with “Medea and her Double”, a Korean rendition of Euripides’s tragedy “Medea”, being performed in Poland.
“Medea and her Double” is screening at InlanDimensions
Limb Hyoung-taek‘s rendition actually starts a bit before the original, showing Medea running away with her lover Jason after a period of flirting, and eventually giving birth to his two children. However, eventually Jason leaves and marries Glauce, the daughter of Creon, to further his quest for riches and power. Burning with anger and feeling a sense of intense injustice, Medea draws a plan to take revenge on everyone that wronged her, but eventually she decides to go even further.
Limb directs a play that combines a number of different elements in order to tell this classic story, with the music, the singing, and the sound in general, playing a role as crucial as the visual aspect here. It is quite interesting, and actually takes some getting used to, to watch the actors play the parts on stage, and a number of other actors providing the sound while sitting on the two sides of it. A guitar and a haegeum conclude this “trick”, which is quite entertaining as soon as one gets used to it. The second unusual element is the fact that there are frequently two Medeas and even two Jasons on the stage, with ones representing their young and innocent selves, and the others their present hypostases and, essentially the consequences of Jason’s deeds, in a rather appealing antithesis.
Add to all that a sense of comedy that permeates the play in the beginning before it eventually turns into a violent drama towards the end, contemporary dancing, and a repetitious style of delivering lines that also combines singing, and you have a rather rich audiovisual spectacle that is easy both to the eye and to the ear. The set is also impressive, with the small vertical ponds on the two sides, the intensely red background that is also mirrored on the floor, and the use of various types of candles, with the sum of them all inducing the play with an intense ritualistic sense that becomes even more dominant as time passes.
Regarding context, Limb seems to criticize particularly the constant search for wealth and power, with it essentially being the reason behind Jason’s actions and Medea’s revenge. Furthermore, that the former is presented as a kind of a fool from beginning to end, also moves in the same path. Kang Jin-hwi in the role is quite fun to watch, presenting his foolishness with gusto, while his transformation close to the end is rather memorable.
And talking about acting, Kim So-hee as the main Medea is impressive throughout the play, both in her happy and innocent self in the beginning and the utterly villainous one at the end. Moon Jae-kyung as the second Medea is also good, particularly in her common interactions with Kim, in a role, though that is much more measured.
Apart from perhaps lagging a bit close to the end, “Medea and her Double” is an excellent play that manages to reinvigorate the classic by inducing it with intense oriental elements and a sense of hilarity in the beginning, that actually makes the drama of the finale even more impactful.
