'Listen', 'look', 'witness', we are urged as an audience throughout Medea, a pinnacle of ancient Greek tragedy. Under Rosa Tyler-Clark’s direction, this domestic drama takes place not in the Greece of old, nor in the modern day, but in a timeless setting will resonate with any audience. Telling the Euripidean tale of a wife wronged, a mother turned murderer, Medea fills the Corpus Playroom with an energy and emotion just right for Greek term in Cambridge.

Helen Vella Taylor opens the play as the Nurse, a detached figure from the misery around her. The hopelessness of her plight to have an impact on Medea before she does something awful is evident in her distant gaze, her pacing the set. The suitcases that litter the stage also suggest a displacement in the world she inhabits with her mistress: they do not belong. Lola Seaton’s entrance is everything Medea’s should be: from the very start, she has the mannerisms of a woman driven to the edge by jealousy and rage perfected. The incessant hand wringing, clapping, clawing, and heavy breathing, are the marks of a woman itching to begin her action. Seaton, channelling the spirit of Medea, goes on to outshine all her male cast members with her simultaneously sympathetic and reviling portrayal. This is not to downplay Seth Kruger’s Jason, who brings a relatability to Jason not many adaptations do. On the page, Jason is a manipulative, patronising misogynist, but Kruger makes him human, makes him a father who loves his sons, and seems to genuinely believe, however wrongly, that his remarriage is for the good of his family.

As the tension builds, the audience feels Medea slipping further away from any empathy. At first, directed by the Chorus, we feel the sweet satisfaction revenge fills her with, but soon we are alienated by her intensity. To cry ‘I am their mother!’ as a justification for her own hand being the one to take her children’s’ lives is baffling to us, but to her seems the embodiment of justice. The scene in which she formulates this plan in front of the Chorus, to the disturbing and seemingly ceaseless beat of a live drum is enough to create goosebumps. Once again, Seaton masters the torn character – one moment she smiles with cold-hearted malice at the thought of vengeance, the next she whimpers at the notion of infanticide. We can never quite tell what is honest and what is deception – with Creon and Jason she flatters and begs, clearly an act, but when engages in a jarring dance sequence with Jason, it is disturbingly unclear whether this is deceit, or madness, or indeed complete severance from emotion.

Aside from the superb acting, the directorial decisions in this production really make it. Firstly, the treatment of the chorus – minimised to a manageable three members – remains a crucial element, without completely isolating the audience as such an alien feature can be prone to do. Their odes, with their fluidity of movement, dimmed lights, and rhythmic music, transport us to that mysterious Greek world of the collective voice, allowing us a moment to reflect on what has just occurred. The final ode of the Chorus is particularly immersive, using pulsating music and tinged lighting to create a chaotic feel of nihilism. Additionally, in having two child actors play the sons, Medea’s atrocities are amplified; whereas some productions will avoid such realistic harshness by using other devices – I have seen balloons, puppets, even invisible children – the innocence of these children is emphasised by their childish pyjamas and complete silence. Finally, to end this play, Tyler-Clark removes Medea’s exit, the deus ex machina, which is usually read as Euripides absolving Medea of her crimes. By closing the performance with Medea remaining on stage, alongside her grief-stricken husband and her children’s bloodied corpses, we are hit with a powerful twist. Perhaps this allows us to feel all wrongs have been righted, but it also leaves us to ponder where will the misery of this family end?

Medea is always an experience to behold on stage, and in this adaptation it thrives in its exploration of the animal inside us all, but also the humanity we possess. This feels like a godless universe, leaving the audience left to make sense of what they have seen alone, the mark of complex and exciting tragic experience.