Unravel Reckoning

Susan Bamford Caleo offers a heart wrenching performance as the scorned woman in her strikingly dramatic interpretation of Euripides tragic play Medea in Unravel Reckoning. She has reunited with musician Elissa Goodrich, with whom she brought us the much-heralded Fragments at LA Mama in 2017, returning post Covid with a powerful new show.

Bamford Caleo has ripped open the story of Medea and deconstructed songs and words from a bunch of musicians and writers who too were inspired by this tragedy. Medea the enchantress, witch and almighty powerful goddess has been abandoned by her husband Jason, who has run off and married a young princess for status and wealth. She takes revenge by murdering his new wife and killing their two children. Bamford Caleo locates her Medea in an everyday domestic setting, it addresses the modern commonality of women whose husbands left them for younger woman, finding themselves emotionally dishevelled, lost and alone to fend for the children.

Bamford Caleo is a performance-based artist, combining her flexible voice with physical movement, with Goodrich by her side providing spine-chilling sounds on her array of instruments that include the vibraphone, bowed flexatones and drums. Bamford Caleo addresses the revenge seeking and infanticide themes with passion and strength - her movements are solid and robust. She cries out “Cut me out of your heart”, she summons the “Black swan” like a conjuring sorceress ready to kill and destroy all that she once loved.

Unravel Reckoning is a powerful and challenging performance piece that synchronises a tragic play with edgy instrumental music, dramatic vocals, and physical performance.

Flora Georgiou

Photographer: Darren Gill