WHAT play would you most like to direct if you were to become associate director at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, asked artistic director Ian Brown.

"Medea", came Femi Elufowoju Jr's reply.

His vision to stage a version that embraced two ancient theatre traditions has been realised but this production has had a troubled birth and even now is still unsteady on its feet.

Last month, in interview during rehearsals, Elufowoju's concerns were apparent. How's it going, Femi? "It's very, very fragile at the moment because of the nature of the piece," he replied.

Hardly reassuring, and that was before he burdened himself with the lead male role of Jason, taking over from Clarence Smith with three weeks to opening night. Whereupon voice coach Susan Stern took a stronger hold on the tiller, steering Medea through rocky waters with her customary calming hand as the production's associate director.

There is no doubting Elufowoju's noble ambitions in marrying the theatre traditions of the Yoruba tribe in his native Nigeria with those of ancient Greece in a ritualistic Anglo-African production that presents moments of confrontation - even the murder scene - only reported in previous productions.

He has assembled the right tools for the job too: the regional premiere of Alistair Elliot's newly re-worked translation of the Euripides text, a modern script first used for Diana Rigg's unforgettable performance for the Almeida Theatre in 1993; an imposing monolithic design by Ruari Murchison, fresh from his Titus Andronicus set for the Royal Shakespeare Company; and Tanya Moodie, from the RSC and National Theatre, to play Medea.

Moodie - what an apt name for the role she is playing - is the glue that binds this erratic production.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, as the saying goes, and her vengeful, child-murdering Medea - all close cropped hair, intense eyes and impassioned conviction in the route she must take - conveys her righteous bitterness at her rejection by husband Jason in favour of a more advantageous union with the daughter of the King of Corinth. The predominantly student audience occasionally laughs, not in a smirking way, but at the smartness of her caustic tongue.

By comparison, Elufowoju's own performance is stiff and mannered and hammy too, and all around him his supporting cast has a worried look, particularly the women of Corinth (Ony Uhiara, Ekua Ekumah, Julie Hewlett), as if questions are still unresolved. This Medea has the right tools but can't fathom the instruction book.

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Updated: 11:44 Tuesday, November 25, 2003