And I married the girl! Harper Jane was truly phenomenal in this part. No one else her age could have come even close to that portrayal, at once toweringly powerful and subtle. This was one of the shows in which I had a small part, but it turned out I was very, very busy. I never got to see the finished product, even from the Stage Manager's perch since, as I was reminded by the interview below, I babysat for Medea's children during the run. This was not only out of some nascent paternal instinct. I felt strongly that I couldn't just meet the kids at the edge of the stage and expect them to listen to me while we were on. So, as we say now, I bonded with them in the green room and tried to get them to focus on the task at hand, with some measure of success. All of these kids are now pushing 30. I'd love to know what they remember--if anything--of this experience.

The interview below illustrates one of the points I try to make to my Theatre History students: newspaper accounts are often less than accurate. In this case, the reporter didn't have enough room to tell the whole story and so misquoted me. Or out of some strange need to put a good face on the situation, I may have prevaricated. In any case, the facts in the newspaper are less than the truth. In fact, the kids were becoming quite terrified of their last entrance when they were carried off by Dick Spear's fanciful Hawkmen. We had told them that they were "asleep" and so had to be perfectly still until they were in the green room with the door closed. One or two of the kids were becoming visibly unnerved and their reliability was definitely in question. I can hardly blame them Imagine asking a child to imagine that while they are asleep a big black bird/man would come and carry them off. I had tried everything I could think of--cajoling, encouraging, comforting, appealing to a barely formed sense of duty, even threats of bodily disfigurement all to no avail. At last Mike Pardy, one of the scary Hawkmen, doffed his mask and said with his usual twinkle, "You're supposed to be dead! You're dead!" Several of us gasped. But the kids, of course, knew how to play dead! What fun! They subsequently threw themselves into the whole enterprise, playing deliciously mangled corpses for the rest of the run. So much for child psychology.

REVIEWS and INTERVIEWS:

THE DETROIT NEWS:

In Greek Tragedy Kids are a hit at Hlberry by Ann Sweeney

The scene stealers in Hilberry Theatre's production of Medea are the youngsters who play Medea's ill-fated children.

Danny Riddick, 6, and Kirk Bredin, 6, both of Dearborn; Melissa Rizzo, 6 of Lincolng Park; Jamie Newell, 4, of Detroit, and Amy Curry, 4, of Warren, make five stage entrances in the ancient Greek tragedy. The play was revived in recent years when it was rewritten for actress Judith Anderson. The play continues in the Hilberry repertoire through April 25.

"Medea" is really a horrendous story," says Wayne Turney, a Wayne State graduate student who plays the role of the chilldren's tutor. Medea murders her own children in the end.

"In order not to traumatize the kids playing the parts, we tried to downplay the ghastly aspects of the tale with euphemisims, like telling them in the death scene that they were to act as if they were asleep.

"Frankly, they were quite bored. When the truth slipped out, that they were to play dead, they loved it!"

The children alternate in the role, two at each performance. Medea is interspersed with other plays each week.

"They have minimal speaking lines, but a lot to remember in terms of action and position," says Turney, who functions as the youngsters' babysitter offstage.. "We go over things before every entrance, but the biggest problem is the exits. They want to run off shouting about how great it went!"

Director John Speers (sic) made sure the children were occupied onstage by giving them toys to hold in their hands. In one scene, they listen to a giant sea shell.

Harper Jane McAdoo, who plays Medea, said the children occasionally send the audience into giggles by their total lack of inhibition.

"Occasionally one will scratch or wriggle during a particularly drmamtic scene. Once one was chewing something, suddenly rememvered that it was forbidden to ches onstage, took out the wad and handed it to me."

THE SOUTH END

Powerful 'Medea' at Hilberry by Clarence Persinger

A powerful and gripping "Medea" has joined the Hilberry Theatre repertory. It is an overwhelming spectacle of destruction initiated by a woman who has been wronged by her husband.

But unlike most Medeas who concentrate on presenting a picture of malicious vengeful hate, Harper Jane McAdoo's Medea is a complicated emotional tour-de-force.

She shows a kinder and loving side of this rejected wife. Her anguish, vengeance, joy and regality are all an integral part of Medea.

Looking like a youthful Elizabeth Taylor with raven hair flowing down her back, Miss McAdoo plays a woman who has been cast aside at the height of her womanhood. She is a stranger in a foreign land, guilt-ridden at the wrongs she has comitted in the name of love for h er husband, Jason.

She is both loved and feared by the women of Corinth for she is knowledgeable in the black arts. It is this knowledge that aids her in the destruction of her husband's second wife and her father, Creon, king of Corinth. Her determination to ruin Jason drives Medea to the ultimate crime of murdering her own young sons.

Miss McAdoo uses her whole body in communication. She rises up with head held high as she spits at Creon, and cowers at her gate as she thinks of the horrendous deeds she will commit.

Her words likewise can roll out like honey or spit out like daggers. Yet she also shows love as she plays with her children or tenderly touches Jason's arm rememvering tender moments of their marriage.

But no matter what she does, Miss McAdoo commands the audience's attention.

IN contrast to the portrayal of Medea, Colby Schneider presents a kindly, easily frightened old nurse. It's her pitiful lamentations that open the play, and her wishes of having never come to Corinth. Her vivid tale of the gruesome death of Jason's second wife and her father from deadly gifts sent by Medea brings gasps from the audience.

Thomas C. Spackman is a handsome and virile Jason. His bronzed bearded face gives him a classical, Greek god-like appearance.

He struts around at furst as if he was too busy in his quest for power to be bothered with Medea. But it was a weary and crushed human being that returned to claim his sons from Medea. When she triumphantly left witht he bloody bodies of his sons he crumpled, utterly defeated.

Al Hammacher presents an arrogant Creon who sentences Medea to banishment. Yet even the powerful king melts at her tears and grants her another day in the city--just enough time for her to carry out her deeds of destruction.

Jeff Boudov, John Michael Hosking and Michael Pardy are the graceful, menacing hawk guards, magical protectors of Medea. Their black costumes and headmasks of feathers and jewels are of haunting beauty, as designed by Daniel Thomas Field.

All the costumes have a regal beauty abouth them. Of special interest are the dark dress and necklaces of beads and shells worn by the nurse.

Linda Baldwin's set dominated by the massive stone gates of Medea's house, along with Gary Witt's lighting provides an ominous eerie playng field.

Director Richard Spear's "Medea" builds to a forboding tragic finale that leaves the audience wide-eyed.

"Medea continues through April. For performance schedule and ticket information, call the theater box office at ********.