Tom Hewitt gives an unforgettable performance in Aaron Mark’s darkly mesmerizing Another Medea (photo by Aaron Mark)
ANOTHER MEDEA
Sheen Center for Thought and Culture
Frank Shiner Theater
18 Bleecker St. between Mott & Elizabeth Sts.
Tuesday, October 8, $53-$78, 7:30
Medea: Re-Versed continues through October 13
www.redbulltheater.com
In conjunction with its presentation of Medea: Re-Versed, Luis Quintero’s hip-hop reimagining of the Euripides tragedy, Red Bull is hosting a one-night-only special Revelation Reading encore performance of Aaron Mark’s Another Medea, taking place October 8 at the Sheen Center. “Funny, insightful, and haunting, it is a fascinating contemporary play about a disarming psychopath and also a twisted love letter to classical theater,” Red Bull founding artistic director Jesse Berger said in a statement. “With the inimitable Tom Hewitt as our guide to this labyrinth, audiences are in for a deceptively simple and revelatory theatrical journey.”
Below is my original review of the show when it ran in October 2013 at the All for One Solo Theater festival at the Cherry Lane; it was originally produced earlier that year at the Duplex in the West Village and then New York Theatre Workshop at Dartmouth and later played at the Wild Project.
Aaron Mark’s Another Medea is as intense and gripping a show as you’re ever likely to see, a harrowing examination of Euripides’s Medea myth, set in modern-day New York City. The eighty-minute one-man show is spectacularly acted by Tom Hewitt, in a 180-degree turn from his Broadway resume, which includes such villainous musical characters as Dr. Frank N Furter in The Rocky Horror Show, Billy Flynn in Chicago, Scar in The Lion King, and Pontius Pilate in Jesus Christ Superstar. Hewitt plays an actor determined to meet fellow thespian Marcus Sharp, who is in prison for committing a horrific crime. For most of the show, Hewitt is seated behind a small table, retelling the story that Sharp told his onetime understudy when they finally met.
Sharp shares his tale in precise, exacting detail, using multiple voices as he talks about his relationship with a wealthy British doctor named Jason, one that ends in heartbreaking tragedy. Writer-director Mark (Commentary, Failed Suicide Attempts, Random Unrelated Projects) wrote the show specifically for Hewitt, who is performing it at the third annual All for One Theater Festival at the Cherry Lane Studio Theatre (and for the first time without the script in front of him). Hewitt is nothing short of breathtaking, immersing himself in the role of an extremely complex and conflicted character whose crime is unfortunately all too familiar in these difficult times. His mastery of the material is stunning, poetically delivered without calling attention to itself. Brutal and beautiful at the same time, Another Medea is a one-of-a-kind theatrical experience that deserves to have a longer life in a bigger venue.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]