• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • HOME
  • NEWS+OPINIONS
    • NEWS TO US
    • COLUMNS
      • APPARENT HORIZON
      • DEAR READER
      • Close
    • LONGFORM FEATURES
    • OPINIONS
    • EDITORIAL
    • Close
  • ARTS+ENTERTAINMENT
    • FILM
    • MUSIC
    • COMEDY
    • PERFORMING ARTS
    • VISUAL ARTS
    • Close
  • DINING+DRINKING
    • EATS
    • SIPS
    • BOSTON BETTER BEER BUREAU
    • Close
  • LIFESTYLE
    • CANNABIS
      • TALKING JOINTS MEMO
      • Close
    • WELLNESS
    • GTFO
    • Close
  • STUFF TO DO
  • TICKETS
  • ABOUT US
    • ABOUT
    • MASTHEAD
    • ADVERTISE
    • PRIVACY POLICY
    • Close
  • BECOME A MEMBER

Dig Bos

The Dig - Boston's Only Newspaper

GRIEF’S AVALANCHE: NOT MEDEA AT FLAT EARTH THEATRE

Written by CHRISTOPHER EHLERS Posted March 20, 2019 Filed Under: A+E, Performing Arts

Juliet Bowler. Photo by Jake Scaltreto.
Juliet Bowler. Photo by Jake Scaltreto.

 

★★★☆☆

 

“Not too little, not too much. There safety lies.”

 

Euripides wrote that for Medea, but the same idea can easily be applied to the theater, where audiences frequently favor feel-good safety over deeper, darker provocations. For thousands of years, one of the hardest pills for audiences to swallow has been that of Medea, the scorned demigod who murdered her children to enact revenge on her two-timing husband.

 

Oddly, Allison Gregory’s disarmingly original Not Medea, which is currently running at Flat Earth Theatre at Watertown’s Mosesian Center for the Arts through March 30, feels both too little and too much, a frustrating thing considering the play’s potential and the gifts of its cast.

 

Juliet Bowler plays Woman, an overworked nurse with a bit of personal baggage who arrives late to the theater to take in a play after her shift. The play, it turns out, is Medea, and she’s not at all happy about that, chastising us, her fellow audience members, for coming together to judge her. Her summation of Medea? “He behaves badly, she behaves worse, and everyone just stands around watching. Kind of like this.”

 

There are similarities between Woman and Medea—hence her strong reaction—and as she tells us her story, she slips in and out of the ancient Greek world of Medea, complete with Chorus (Cassandra Meyer) and Jason (Gene Dante). It makes sense that the lines blur between Woman and Medea, but what isn’t helpful in Elizabeth Yvette Ramirez’s production is that it isn’t always clear what world we’re in or what’s going on.

 

Juliet Bowler is frequently remarkable, attacking the comic aspects of the role with a Melissa McCarthy-like deadpan that is riotous. But she also deftly brings to life a broken woman whose mistakes are eating her alive, and Not Medea is most successful when Bowler is all-in on either of those.

 

Elizabeth Krah’s too on-the-nose Greek costume designs took me out of the play a bit, but Kyle Lampe’s sound design is again remarkable (his design for The Nether was similarly thrilling), giving Not Medea much of its mood.

 

Clumsiness of Ramirez’s production aside, the play itself is a promising but perhaps too convoluted examination of motherhood, womanhood, and our predilection for judgment. And if we are to look at the misgivings of a modern woman through this ancient Greek woman who, early feminist qualities be damned, did some terrible things, then what are we really being asked to look at? I can’t figure out the answer to that question. Neither, it seems, can Ramirez.

 

NOT MEDEA. THROUGH 3.30 AT FLAT EARTH THEATRE AT THE MOSESIAN CENTER FOR THE ARTS, 321 ARSENAL ST., WATERTOWN. FLATEARTHTHEATRE.COM

 

Christopher Ehlers
CHRISTOPHER EHLERS

Theater critic for TheaterMania & WBUR’s TheArtery | Theater Editor for DigBoston | film and music critic for EDGE Media | Boston Theater Critics Association.

Related posts
  • CHRISTOPHER EHLERS
    https://digboston.com/author/christopher-ehlers/
    DIG THIS: SPRING ARTS PREVIEW EDITION
  • CHRISTOPHER EHLERS
    https://digboston.com/author/christopher-ehlers/
    SUPER SOAKERS: 10 MOISTURIZERS FOR THE DOG DAYS OF SUMMER
  • CHRISTOPHER EHLERS
    https://digboston.com/author/christopher-ehlers/
    FILM REVIEW: OSCAR-NOMINATED SHORTS 2021
  • CHRISTOPHER EHLERS
    https://digboston.com/author/christopher-ehlers/
    THE BEST THEATER IN GREATER BOSTON OF 2020

Filed Under: A+E, Performing Arts Tagged With: Allison Gregory, Cassandra Meyer, Elizabeth Yvette Ramirez, Euripides, Flat Earth Theatre, Gene Dante, Juliet Bowler, Medea, Mosesian Center for the Arts, Not Medea, Watertown

WHAT’S NEW

"Spotted Lanternfly, back_2017-06-16-16.50" by Sam Droege is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0

Invasive Spotted Lanternfly Alert!

Morale Violation: Whistle-Blowers Report Culture Of “Retaliation,” “Nepotism” At Parole Agency

Morale Violation: Whistle-Blowers Report Culture Of “Retaliation,” “Nepotism” At Parole Agency

Inbox: "Black Youth File Racial Profiling Complaint Against Medford Police"

Inbox: “Black Youth File Racial Profiling Complaint Against Medford Police”

Mass One Step Closer To New-Prison Moratorium, But Not There Yet

Mass One Step Closer To New-Prison Moratorium, But Not There Yet

Congrats To Worcester On Coming In At #69 On Best Places To Live List

Congrats To Worcester On Coming In At #69 On Best Places To Live List

Mass Supreme Court Sides With Asshole Sheriff In Prison Phone Fee Decision

Mass Supreme Court Sides With Asshole Sheriff In Prison Phone Fee Decision

Primary Sidebar

FEATURED EVENT

Most Popular

  • Morale Violation: Whistle-Blowers Report Culture Of “Retaliation,” “Nepotism” At Parole Agency
  • We Turned the North End Restaurant Lawsuit Against Mayor Wu Into a Musical
  • Do You Want To Work For the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission?
  • Inbox: Red Bull Cliff Diving Returns To Boston Waterfront
  • How Long Can Major Cannabis Cultivators Sustain Massive Indoor Grows In Mass?

CURRENT STREET EDITION

DIG 24.08 – 04/21/22

Footer

Social Buttons

DigBoston facebook DigBoston Twitter DigBoston Instagram

Masthead

About

Advertise

Privacy Policy

Customer Service

Distribution

About Us

DigBoston is a one-stop nexus for everything worth doing or knowing in the Boston area. It's an alt-weekly, it's a website, it's an e-mail blast, it's a twitter account, it's that cool party that you were at last night ... hey, you're reading it, so it's gotta be good. For advertising inquiries: [email protected] To reach Editorial: [email protected] For internship opportunities: [email protected]