In a year when the theater seems oddly preoccupied with crazed, jilted women (“Sunset Boulevard,” Stephen Sondheim’s upcoming “Passion”), “Medea” is still irresistible. After Medea uses her magic powers to betray her own family and help her husband, Jason, steal the Golden Fleece, he leaves her for the Princess of Corinth. To get revenge, she slaughters the princess, the king and, ultimately, her own children, while Jason stands by helplessly. The challenge of the play is to make Medea’s barbarity believable, not just spectacle. It’s not surprising that Rigg-who made Emma Peel the thinking person’s sex symbol on TV’s “The Avengers” more than 25 years ago-energizes the role with brainy aplomb. Her Medea stalks the stage like a linebacker in flowing crimson, barefoot and surprisingly asexual. When Zoe Caldwell brought the last “Medea” to Broadway in 1982, she juiced up the character’s sexual energy, underscoring Medea’s hotbloodedness. Rigg-using an accessible, if somewhat unpoetic, translation by Alistair Elliot-zeroes in on Medea’s mind. She hangs on nearly every mention of her cleverness-“Come then, Medea. Use all your knowledge now. Move toward -horror!” she exhorts herself in a mesmerizing voicewhile turning the references to femininity and sex into throwaway jokes. It’s not losing the man that infuriates her, but losing her pride and wasting her superior talents on such a louse. Smart woman, foolish choices.
Except for the gripping scene where she debates whether or not to murder her sons, Rigg’s brain-powered Medea almost never dissolves into wails or rants. She doesn’t have to. The dazzlingly lit set of acid-corroded iron walls is a physical manifestation of the play’s scalding emotions-especially in the shattering final scene. The set and a blackcloaked, three-woman Greek chorus that sings in haunting fugues form a vibrant canvas on which Rigg paints a chilling portrait of controlled rage. Director Jonathan Kent, who created this production at the trendy Almeida Theatre in London, assaults all the senses simultaneously. Next year he’ll dir et Ralph Fiennes in an international tour of “Hamlet.” What outrageous good fortune.
