Word: medea
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...Philadelphia last week, Mezzo-Soprano Blanche Thebom declaimed the bitter story of Medea to the subdued accompaniment of the Philadelphia Orchestra. It was the world premiere of a 20-minute musical monologue by Atonalist Ernst Krenek, based on Poet Robinson Jeffers' version of the old Greek masterpiece-and one more sample of the broad and busy range of roles that falls to the Metropolitan's Soprano Thebom (pronounced Thee-bom) these days...
...matter-of-fact tone of a chronicler, she sped through the early lines, told how she, Medea, had lavished her love on her husband Jason, only to have him leave her for another woman. Gradually, with ever-widening vocal leaps and roller-coaster plunges, she worked up to her thoughts of revenge and-with a piccolo shrilling-to the murder of her own and Jason's children. The piece ended in a gloomy postlude. When it was over, the orchestra gave Thebom a concerted "Bravo!", and the audience, once it recovered its composure, called her back five times...
After 42 dark weeks, Washington's hungry theatergoers snapped up a morsel-a one-night stand of Judith Anderson in Medea, played in the outdoor Sylvan Theater at the base of the Washington Monument. Actors' Equity would still not permit its players to perform where Negroes were excluded from the audience, and the capital's only playhouse, the National, still balked at such terms...
...outdoor theater, Actress Anderson had to howl down the throb of low-flying planes for an unsegregated audience of 10,000, probably the largest ever to see Medea. Total receipts, for seats in camp chairs or on the grassy slopes: more than $16,000. Six blocks away, the National, still obstinately grinding out minor movies and losing money, was half empty...
...Euripides, Medea is seen at the last escaping to Athens with the bodies of her two children. And, probably since 431 B.C., moralists have been objecting to her apparent escape from punishment and retribution. I trust Mr. McClintic did not have this moral objection in mind when he altered the ending to have Medea merely standing over her children's corpses. The script has not been changed: she still talks of escaping, but the audience does...