Medea
Directed by Wu Shing-Guo with Contemporary Legend Theatre
Set and Costume Design by Tim Yip
The Contemporary Legend Theatre is renowned for taking dance and vocal styles from Beijing Opera and applying them to Western plays. Medea, adapted from the Greek tragedy of the same name, written by Euripides, is one such merger. By adapting western classics, Contemporary Legend Theatre try to break through the strictures of traditional Beijing Theatre, while sharing the form with new audiences. Based on the myth of Jason and Medea, the plot follows the actions of Medea, a barbarian and the wife of Jason. She finds her position in Greek society threatened as Jason leaves her for a princess of Corinth. Medea takes vengeance on Jason by killing his new wife as well as her own children by him, after which she escapes to Athens to start a new life.
Considered shocking in its day, Medea and the suite of plays that it accompanied in the City Dionysia festival came last in the festival that year (431 BCE). Nonetheless the play remained part of the tragedic repertoire, and experienced renewed interest with the emergence of the feminist movement, because of its nuanced and sympathetic portrayal of Medea’s struggle to take charge of her own life in a male-dominated world. The play was the most frequently performed Greek tragedy through of the 20th century.
