Sometimes, miracles really do happen. I’m not talking about the dead coming back to life – well, not yet I’m not. I’m talking about the fact that two people around the world can have practically identical ideas and for both these ideas to be turned into TV series.
In France, for example, there was a movie called Les Revenants (‘The Returned’), which in turn became the basis of a Canal+ TV series by Fabrice Gobert called Les Revenants that was shown on Channel 4 in the UK and the Sundance Channel in the US. In it, the dead come back to life in a small town, revealing all kinds of issues and relationship problems, including in some cases mysteries about how they died. In particular, there’s a weird boy who’ll do your head in.
Meanwhile, over in the US, a man called Jason Mott wrote a book called The Returned, which has new become the basis of ABC’s Resurrection, in which the dead come back to life in a small town, revealing all kinds of issues and relationship problems, including in some cases mysteries about how they died. In particular, there’s a weird boy who’ll do your head in.
Spooky, huh? And I haven’t gotten started on the fact that the almost identical Babylon Fields is being remade right now, as is Les Revenants.
Where: Riverside Studios, Crisp Road, Hammersmith, London W6 9RL When: 5-22 March 2014, 7:45pm; 2pm matinees: 18, 20, 22 March How long: 1h30 Tickets:£17
Euripides is probably my favourite playwright and I’d be hard-pushed to come up with a favourite of his many wonderful works – okay, it’s Helene – but Medea is certainly up there in the top three. It’s an extraordinary play that’s still shocking, with Medea killing her own children partially in vengeance at the way her husband, Jason (of the Argonauts fame), has deserted her in favour of a new wife. Not only did it effectively wipe out previous notions of both Medea and Jason, with much of what we know about both actually likely to have been inventions of Euripides, it largely overshadowed later inventions, with only the occasional innovation (such as her chariot being drawn by dragons or serpents) having stemmed from later sources. It also has one of the most memorable feminist speeches in theatre history, one that not even Shakespeare can really challenge.
Now it’s been revived again at the Riverside Studios by Theatre Lab, a London-based group of fringe actors who every year put on a new production of a Greek tragedy, with Antigone, The Oresteia and Lysistrata among their previous productions. As I’ve remarked before, it can be hard to perform Greek tragedy for a modern audience, since it can be very static if not done right; it can also be very inaccessible or even laughable if adhered to too closely, since it can involve song, dance and even masks, depending on how rigorous the director wants it to be; and if directors decide to innovate too much, in can be very silly and even pointless (“I decided in this production of Agamemnon to explore the parallels between the Greek women and Albanian sworn virgins”).
Theatre Lab are a pretty reliable bunch and of the various fringe performers that put on Greek tragedy, they’re the best of the lot. Indeed, I’d rate their production of Antigone over the National’s recent version starring Christopher Eccleston, which despite some fine acting missed the mark by a country mile.
Theatre Lab try to be as authentic as possible to the original text, while using modern production values to bring it to life. And on the whole, Medea fits into this ethos very well, sticking closely to the text while coming up with innovative ways to depict, for example, Medea’s god-gifted escape vehicle in the absence of any flying chariots that they could use:
Their continued use of Daemonia Nymphe to provide live, ancient Greek-style music, singing and even dancing is creditable and gives a unique atmosphere to the production as well.
However, at times the production crosses over from the merely innovative into the somewhat mannered and pretentious, evoking unprompted laughter from the audience. Marlene Kaminsky is charismatic and compelling as Medea, her accent also making her Colchis-born character suitably foreign in contrast to the English-sounding Greeks. But her vocal and glossal gyrations tend towards the Xena-esque at times, while her physicality, often used well, sometimes becomes an excuse for artificial dance movements, designed mainly to add motion to the show rather than because they’re necessary for the character.
She’s not alone, however, with the play’s chorus of Corinthian women doing synchronised leaning and even self-strangulation at various points. And in the absence of any child actors for Medea to strangle, either on-stage or off-, director Anastasia Revi gives her some, erm, child-sized trainers to focus her attention on and even wear when necessary.
Appropriately enough, George Siena reprises his role of Creon from Antigone, doing well in the additional parts of Aegeus and the messenger, too. However, Tobias Deacon, who was Orestes in The Oresteia, here is Jason and appears to be in a different play from everyone else. While it’s a good, naturalistic performance, Deacon is very much interpreting it as a comedy – until the inevitable happens, of course – and it’s hard to imagine him being the Jason who sailed to the ends of the Earth and slew a giant serpent. Whether or not it’s because Deacon can’t quite imagine in a post-feminist age anyone seriously mouthing some of the misogynistic statements Jason posits, I couldn’t say, but while it does help an otherwise dark play to be more endurable, it sits oddly with the rest of the production.
Nevertheless, if you can control your natural tendency to titter when it all becomes a bit too I, An Actor, this is a very good, accessible production that brings out the play’s many meanings, gives depths to the characters and is always engaging. As with other Theatre Lab productions, a must-see if you like Greek tragedy done well.
It’s that time of the month again – the latest issue of DC’s most consistently enjoyable and excellent title, Superman/Wonder Woman, is hitting people’s tablets this week and it’s a corker, as writer Charles Soule and artist Tony Daniel wrap up the title’s first initial arc with an almost neverending series of surprises, innovations and standout moments the likes of which the nu52 hasn’t ever seen before.
I’ll also be looking after the jump at Justice League of America #13, which features a guest appearance by Wonder Woman as the only one of the Justice League who can finally end the Forever Evil storyline. Just one more reason to like her, huh?
I should also point out that in one of the above two comics we finally get to see Wonder Woman’s new invisible jet. Well, not see, obviously but…
CBS renews: NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles, Person of Interest, CSI, Hawaii Five-0, Blue Bloods, Criminal Minds, Elementary, The Good Wife, Two and a Half Man, Mike & Molly, The Millers, Mom and 2 Broke Girls
In Canada: Wednesdays, 9 et/pt, Global In the US: NBC. Airing in 2014
Now the story of a wealthy family who lost everything and the one sondaughter who had no choice but to keep them all together.
I’m in something of a dilemma here, since my lovely categorisation system has broken down. Working the Engels is a co-production between Canada’s Global network and the US’s NBC network – the first ever Canadian-American sitcom. So does it suck because it’s Canadian or because it’s on NBC?
The show starts with a lawyer dying, leaving his wife (Andrea Martin from My Big Fat Greek Wedding) and family in debt to the tune of $200,000. US or Canadian? It’s not clear since this is one of those shows of nebulous geographical location. Neither is it clear why he wasn’t in a limited liability partnership. Presumably he was a very bad lawyer.
Anyway, the kids rally round, or at least the mousey lawyer daughter (Kacey Rohl who played Abigail Hobbs in Hannibal) does, and her pill-popping, airhead sister (Azura Skye who was Jane on The WB’s Zoe, Duncan, Jack & Jane) and minor criminal brother (Benjamin Arthur from CityTV/HBO Canada’s Less Than Kind) come along to both help and accidentally hinder her efforts to bring the family legal practice back into the black. Except it turns out that most of the deceased’s clients were either pro bono or stupid.
Written by Miss Congeniality’s Katie Ford and her sister Jane Cooper Ford, Working the Engels‘ comparisons with the much revered Arrested Development are obvious. Unfortunately, that’s merely in terms of set-up since it’s not very funny.
The script is short on laughs and pretty much every joke is signalled a mile off and has exactly the punchline you expect. Rohl underplays, everyone else overplays in exactly the same way that virtually every Canadian sitcom you care to think of demands (cf Satisfaction, InSecurity, Seed, 18 To Life, Men With Brooms, Hiccups). The equally requisite physical comedy is ineptly handled and directed. Skye and Arthur’s characters do slightly bad things but do it so nicely, it’s hard to consider them the drop-out liabilities the script demands. The supporting characters are mere stereotypes – the overbearing female boss, the obsequious male Indian, the valley girl client and so on.
In short, there are no redeeming features. Other than a naked Asian guitar-playing character. I’d not seen one of those before but I think she’s only in the pilot.
If I wanted to find something positive to say, I’d say that it is at least well meaning and gentle, rather than insultingly poor and crass, with everyone trying to ‘zing’ each other, like so many US sitcoms of late (e.g. Mom,The Millers,Super Fun Night). I only felt the urge to turn off a couple of times while I was watching it and that was more because I was bored than because I hated it.
But that’s about it and I think the fact NBC hasn’t announced an air date for it yet should speak volumes – if NBC won’t show it, it must be bad.
Where: Riverside Studios, Crisp Road, Hammersmith, London W6 9RL
