Tonight I had the pleasure of seeing the aforementioned play I told you all about a few days ago, “Medea.”
Getting there just before the house doors closed and the play started, I was happy to find a WONDERFUL seat in the first row on the opposite side of the mainstage at Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, CT.
Let me start out my review by saying that I was very impressed with “Medea.”
There was so much of a vamp of using sign language that I thought it would have been used throughout the entire play, and I thought every character was going to use sign language and speaking to communicate. But this wasn’t the case. Mary Vreeland (who was EXCELLENT, by the way) signed the whole time and you could see true emotion from her by just her body language and signing. This blew me away. But I was honestly quite surprised that not everyone was doing sign language. The chorus only signed a few times, Meagan Pachomski (who played the Nurse) did this as well. But everyone else mostly SPOKE and didn’t sign to Mary. It left me thinking about communication in general and how if two groups speak completely separate languages how DO they communicate? But Kelly Morgan (director, pictured at left) certainly proved this through body language and signing. Several of the characters asked Mary’s character (Medea) why she was using her “language of origin” (which I am assuming is sign language) and she says through signing and through Maegan’s words that she wanted to use the language she was most familiar with ( I think… correct me if I’m wrong.)
Now I must really talk about a few people that in my eyes, truly shined in this production. While yes, everyone in the cast truly shined, these people in particular stood out to me because of their performance and the ways they interpreted their characters. These people are Mary Vreeland (who played Medea), Maegan Pachomski (who played the Nurse) and Mark Medaglia (who played Jason).
Mary Vreeland is an EXCELLENT, very talented actress. She is a gorgeous woman who is a Broadway, national tour and Television actress. She is deaf. Her character of Medea and strong, confident, and full of anger and ready for revenge. Vreeland succeeds in all of these facets of her character. I remember someone from the show telling me that she was able to tell whether or not someone was truly ‘feeling’ what they were going through by just seeing their body language. I thought this was one of the most amazing things I’ve heard about how to tell if someone’s faking emotion or not. I could see her eyes filling up with water when her character was angry at her deceitful husband Jason. I could see the anger she had and the strength that carried her throughout the entire play. This woman, I believe, is FULL of inner strength, and I feel that’s what helped her to truly OWN this role. When you first saw her communicating on stage it made me think she was communicating with others normally. But through her silence on stage it brought the power to express her emotions fully through her body. Mary Vreeland’s performance was outstanding tonight, and I hope that if you fellow bloggers are in the area you can come catch her performance. You really will be blown away.
What I learned through reading the program is that the other professional actors I spoke about in my last blog (which I omitted their names out of the blog), James Murphy and PeggyRae Johnson, were not in the play anymore. At least this is the impression I got from reading the program. What I did find is that the Nurse was played by a student who happens to be in the same year as me, Maegan Pachomski. I’ve known Maegan for a few years now and tonight I truly watched her shine on stage. WOW.
Maegan (pictured left) plays the Nurse, who is Medea’s kind-of “lady-in-waiting” sort of character. But a twist to this is she also gets to interpret Mary’s sign language and speak it into words the audience can understand. The cool thing was that Maegan did this with #1) such EASE, and #2) SO IN SYNC with Mary’s actions. They work well together… so well that I started thinking Medea had a speaking voice! Maegan is gorgeous and I am so proud of her right now. She put her all into the role and I truly believe she needs to be recognized for such great work! I applaud her very much.
Another person I have known for a few years as well is Mark Medaglia (pictured at right), who plays the role of Jason, Medea’s husband. The way he interpreted his character was DEAD ON. The inflection in his voice especially matched the character who has a large lust for power and happiness with himself (but takes no regard for his wife Medea and his children). Mark is another one who truly shined in his role tonight. I watched him succeed through his strong emotions at the beginning, middle and end of his performance. I applaud him as well tonight for his very hard work…he’s a very talented actor.
I also must recognize the chorus, on another note. I think they were all wonderful too. They brought in the sound effects that made me feel emotionally and physically what was going on in the scene. They would make various sound effects using their bodies, such as “ooh”ing or crawling on the floor. Because I was in the first row I got to see the chorus speak their lines DIRECTLY in front of me. While at first it did seem a little intimidating having them so close, it was very nice to see them so close and interact with the audience and with Medea. I believed their story and their fight to help Medea fulfill her life wishes. The girls in the chorus are another group to be applauded!
Kelly Morgan in his acting class always says a play is supposed to “move” you. I must agree with him on this statement, because if a play does not move you, you are not engaged fully enough in the play to make that physical, emotional and intellectual connection. I definitely had a physical connection with the show. I had this tendency to keep leaning forward and try to look closer at what was going on. I felt by instinctively doing that I felt I was very much engaged in the show’s plot. I felt emotionally moved by this play, especially when Medea killed her two children for revenge on her husband. I saw a fellow chorus member welling up with real tears, and I was blown away by this. I felt awful too when Medea killed her children. Which brings me to the intellectual movement I felt. This play made me question several parts of this story and made me want to think about them while on the way back to campus tonight and especially right now. I’m curious as to why certain points of the story are the way they are written. But I will not get into that now.
Fellow QU students and to fellow bloggers: PLEASE go check out this show! On the positive side, it’s a full 1.5 hours with no intermission! In other words, you can have your cake and eat it too. The play did not fully feel like an hour and a half, even though I must admit I looked at my watch at least once to check what time it was.
I feel “Medea” is about seeing the differences other people have and accepting them for who they are. This play achieved very much tonight and I look forward to hearing about other peoples’ experiences seeing the show!
I found a clip from the New Haven Independent discussing the new 5 year partnership Quinnipiac just made with the Long Wharf Theatre (for more information see THIS WEBSITE). Enjoy!
