Medea
- Jožica Avbelj
- Draga Potočnjak
- Marko Rafolt
- Translation: Tina Malič
- Dramaturgy: Mirna Rustemović
- Set design: Marko Japelj, Lin Martin Japelj
- Costume design: Leo Kulaš
- Costume design assistant: Nina Gorišek
- Choreography: Tanja Zgonc
- Music: Živa Ploj Peršuh
- Cello: Nuša Planinc
- Piano: Sven Brajković
- Video and sound design: Gašper Torkar
- Lighting design: Vesna Kolarec
- Language consultant: Mateja Dermelj
- Stage manager: Urša Červ
The story of the mythical heroine Medea from Euripides’s eponymous tragedy, created over 2500 years ago, has experienced a number of interpretations. Because Medea, in her search for truth and unconditional love, slaughtered her own children, she was turned into a stigmatised, demonised image of a woman who, on emotional, socio-political, religious and mythical levels, tries to free herself from the societal norms. The analysis of her character opens a broad spectrum of psychoanalytical material and an endless number of questions about the personality of a woman who possessed inconceivable power and dared to follow her own path all the way to the end. From the fissures and chips of the text, whether in the original mythos or interpretations by Euripides or Seneca, or perhaps Christa Wolf’s novel, we can sense the layers that have lived above time and represent ontological genetic memory.
In her Medea, Rachel Cusk chooses a different ending. The text, set in the here and now, and written in contemporary language, puts the drama between spouses to the forefront, a drama about divorce and the toxicity of the family environment in which we can read the social pathology of our time. In this still patriarchal world, Medea, stigmatised for being different, fights for herself and her economic independence, her rights, her position in society. This is a study of complex relationships, a power struggle, depicting the pain and consequences of the disintegration of the family unit.
Copyright © 2015, Rachel Cusk
All rights reserved
First performed at the Almeida Theatre, London, 2015