Review: Medusa’s Voice, The Courtyard Theatre

In a modern-day trial, Crew Augustus Hippios (Andrés Maerker) is on trial for the rape of Medusa (Cynthia Callejas). Medusa’s Voice has two aspects to it: the courtroom trial full of rules about how you must speak and behave and how ‘facts’ can be facts or not facts, and a liminal landscape of Medusa’s dreams. I am glad I read the programme beforehand, as this was not immediately clear on viewing. Future audiences may also want to brush up on some Greek so that the role of Melinoe (Zoey Salter) makes a little more sense. 

The dreamscape is where fragments of memories can never be as accurate and detailed as a court process demands. Callejas is strong here; Medusa is clearly traumatised, but it is when Medusa’s Voice pushed the courtroom into farce that it became most interesting. There are a couple of tantalising moments where the absurdity of the trial highlights the deeply horrible process that victims of sexual assault are then forced to go through to seek justice. The unfortunately familiar nonsense about what a victim was wearing is an example, but a particularly smart moment touches on the use of screens, a real feature of such trials. They can be used to prevent the victim from having to see the defendant, but here this is something more unsettling, with a recording projected onto a handheld screen. It’s a really smart reflection on the way the victim’s experience is turned into evidence to be displayed and judged by others.   There is also a potentially fascinating point about silenced victims represented by two dolls. Some of the script around this is really strong, but it gets a little lost in the court process. How can a doll speak and be cross-examined?  

The extended courtroom and large cast of 10 feel overdone. There are really key, important points Medusa’s Voice has to make, but they then feel overwhelmed by the number of ideas and characters looking for attention. It is at its strongest when it trusts one of those ideas and lets it do the work. It also means that some of the cast are given fairly thankless roles. Hecate (Thelma Osorio Euan) is the prosecutor, yet her job instead is to reel off the real-world statistics on sexual assault and deliver a shout of rage into the audience — closer to a voice for the production’s anger than a character. Others feel one-note stereotypes, despite being well-played, notably by Lewis Arthur Turner as Augustus’s defence counsel and Lola Duncan, a high-power executive accused of covering up the crime. 

The audience is left as the jury and has a QR code to submit a verdict. There is no real question over Augustus’ guilt, but Medusa’s Voice is less interested in that verdict than in the ordeal meant to bring justice. Talking of ordeals, a particularly sour note is having friends or family distractingly recording and taking photos on a brightly lit phone from the second row. This shouldn’t be okay with either the Medusa’s Voice team or The Courtyard Theatre team. 

When the play trusts its ideas, it makes genuinely strong and uncomfortable points, especially around the challenge in taking traumatised memory fragments and turning them into something clear, cold and chronological for a court. 

Playwright & Director: Jenn Banda Bemis
Producers: Jenn Banda Bemis & Lola Duncan

Medusa’s Voice has completed its run at The Courtyard Theatre as part of The Camden Fringe