I love ancient Greek theatre, it is some of the most compelling and timeless storytelling we have. They don’t waste time but get right to the heart of the matter, Medea is no different.  This is a story of vengeance, a woman, scorned by her partner for dynastic reasons and pushed to the edge of her sanity. She finds a way forward for herself but at an extreme cost.  Euripides broke new ground in the Greek theatre with many of the ways he told this story, from replacing the Gods in the prologue with a servant and slave to dramatizing infanticide, the progressive nature of his work has sustained the interest of this story for over two millennia. Michael Collier’s new translation propels the story into the modern age with a concise and approachable text that flows and retains the poetic nature of Euripides’ original work, while feeling like dialogue from today. How can we empathize or sympathize with a character that is willing to murder her own children to exact revenge on the wrongs she has suffered? We don’t need to, it’s easy to sit back and judge the characters, but we need to be asking ourselves instead, why? Why does she do it? Why can’t she find another way out? Our world in general will be a better place the more we ask why to understand and not simply judge. Rehabilitation, recovery and healing all begin with the why.

For any of you who have experienced what it is to be an immigrant, this story will hit home.  Medea has left her home and tried to make a new life in a foreign country, one in which she doesn’t know the customs or rituals and must adapt to the new way of life. Even with all the resources in both wealth and status which she has, this kind of change is so hard, imagine those who have neither of those resources to spare. Her cultural alienation forces her to look outside her current situation for where she will belong next. This story is not about immigration per se but it plays a huge part in her journey and decision making.

One of my biggest goals with telling this story was to find a way to dance between the very real and emotional moments and the extreme otherworldy elements offered from such an old story. By shifting between realism and stylized movement we offer a world of today, emotional and truthful, while stylistically exploring the mythical elements that makes this story so rich. I hope the joy of creating this story is clear, as it has been exactly that for me, a joy filled process.

PJ Escobio – 15 August 2024