The looming of tall, thin trees and the dark green cover of moss is indistinct. We could be practically anywhere. However, as the first words slip from the mouth of a woman, dressed plainly in dirt-stained frocks, you may feel that you know precisely where you are. This is where Hansel and Gretel left their trail of breadcrumbs, were taken in by the allure of a sweet-smelling house, and nearly baked into sweet treats for a witch. This is where Little Red Riding Hood encountered the charming wolf, unintentionally led him to her granny’s home, and found herself pulled from the ax-split belly of a beast. Fables like these were told to us as children, brimming with moral lessons and cautionary tales. While the Brothers Grimm and ancient Greek playwrights may have used different language and settings, this effort to instruct your audience through stories of danger, violence, and death is shared among all creators of folklore.
The lesson the play you are about to watch is not as simple as “don’t talk to strangers” or “respect others’ property”, but it is one that we should have been taught as children. If you haven’t learned it, our hero Medea will enlighten you. Before you leap to judgments of her, look to the history of men who acted as she did. Bellerophon. Agamemnon. Odysseus. Hercules. We often forgive the actions of men for which we reproach women. We praise these men for their greatness, yet cast blame and disgrace on the Medeas and Clytemnestras of lore. While her former husband, Jason, hurls insult after insult, debasing her, calling her a “she-lion” and an “abomination”, you must see that she has only imitated the heroes that preceded her. So if you think you’ve met her before, think again. The cunning, promiscuous, evil-bearing Medea has been wiped clean of the shame that men have cast upon her for centuries. This play will reinvent a Medea who has been abused for 2,000 years.
How can we do that? Let’s allow the scene to speak. Let the melody of the birds and the shadows cast by feathered leaves invite your imagination to picture a Medea in this world. One which you may envision woodland creatures and fairies and magic. One in which you may recall the helplessness of a child being led astray or the terrors lurking in the dark. This land of fabled familiarity will open your eyes to the possibility that Medea is just as helpless as a child in the woods. Now, as she enters the warm light that peeks through the canopy, Medea is devastated, lost, and alone. You are confronted with her humanity. You must see the woman struck by Aphrodite’s divine passion, cursed to love a man who was fated to abuse her. A man who, after she slays a dragon for him, kills her father for him, and abandons her family for him, devastatingly declares that he never loved her. Cast out with words that twist daggers in her love-cursed heart, Medea seeks solace in this landscape, as so many have before her and continue to long after.
Here she stands, a foreigner who no longer has a place to call home, treated like a dog by all she had called her family, driven mad with love and shame. She is not well. This is the Medea who finds a desire for revenge. It is her who will go to any lengths to rebalance the scales, to set things right. The world and the gods and those she loved have tossed her around for so long that she has lost herself. What our heroine finds in this place is something deep in the essence of her being: resilience.
“Let no one think that I’m a trivial woman, a feeble one who sits there passively. No, I’m a different sort... Lives like mine achieve the greatest glory.” Her words resound, echoing through the cold, clear air. She’s right, too. Lives like hers are remembered. Medea basks in the glow of a hero. She will not be playing the part you may have anticipated, but one that draws her out of infamy and into sympathy.