Bening Returns to Stage with Modern Twist on ‘Medea’

JEFFREY BROWN:

The story is an old one: in age, nearly 2,500 years; and in plot, a scorned wife who seeks revenge after her husband leaves her for another woman.

ANNETTE BENING, actress:

He was everything to me, and now he's the vilest man alive, my husband.

JEFFREY BROWN:

But Euripides' "Medea" takes revenge to a shocking extreme, killing her two children, and the role remains one of theater's most challenging.

ANNETTE BENING:

Forget you loved them. For one short day, forget, then weep.

JEFFREY BROWN:

Appearing in a new production at UCLA Live in Los Angeles, Annette Bening says the key is connecting to shared human emotions.

ANNETTE BENING:

I think most of us have felt a germ of what the great roles have. Most of us have. I think most of us have fallen in love. I think most of us have felt betrayed. Most of us have betrayed someone.

JEFFREY BROWN:

The production came about when Bening met Croatian theater director Lenka Udovicki at a dinner party. The two women, both working moms, hit it off im mediately.

ANNETTE BENING:

We started to talk, and then we just couldn't stop talking, basically.

JEFFREY BROWN:

But you weren't talking about "Medea"? You were talking about doing something?

LENKA UDOVICKI, director:

Well, we were talking about everything else, but…

ANNETTE BENING:

But — our families, our children. I have four children; she has three children. I have one husband; she has one husband.

JEFFREY BROWN:

That Annette Bening has a husband, Warren Beatty, is, of course, known to all. She's a leading Hollywood celebrity and an acclaimed film actress…

ANNETTE BENING:

You are seeing it.

JEFFREY BROWN:

… first getting attention in early movies like "The Grifters," later nominated for Academy Awards for performances in "American Beauty"…

ANNETTE BENING:

Your father seems to think this kind of behavior is something to be proud of.

JEFFREY BROWN:

… and "Being Julia."

ANNETTE BENING:

Perhaps we should punish you.