Medea - Couverture souple

Euripides (484-406 BC) was a Greek dramatist. The last major tragic playwright of the classical world, he has also been called """"the first modern"""". Euripides was not highly successful in his lifetime, winning the first of only five victories at the Dionysia at the age of 43. By the end of the 19th century, however, Euripides was the most acclaimed Greek playwright. And, when the Royal Shakespeare Company presented a ten-play cycle The Greeks in 1980, seven of the works were by Euripides. Only 17 of his 92 plays survive. These include Medea, The Bacchae and Electra. Euripides's innovations included the deus ex machina and the formal prologue. He used simple everyday language, bringing a new realism to the stage. Although contemporaries accused him of killing tragedy, he humanized drama by adding elements of sentiment, romance, and even comedy. He was the first to argue against the social inferiority of women, and the first to show women in love. He was also the first to explore such subjects as madness and repression. A recluse, he shunned Athenian civil and social affairs, and in later life would sit all day in a cave on Salamis overlooking the sea as he contemplated and wrote """"something great and high"""". In 408 BC Euripides was exiled for his unorthodox views to Macedonia, where he died less than two years later. According to tradition, when the Spartans arrived to burn Athens, they desisted after a reminder that this was Euripides's city.

The contrast is shocking and funny. This Medea is too big for a place like this, her passions too intense, her intelligence too vicious, and in Bartlett's own production, there are an unexpected number of laughs. . . As writer, Bartlett doesn't just transfer Euripides to the modern world - he exposes him to the full weight of post-Freudian psychology. --Guardian

Rage and fear seep through Mike Bartlett's domesticated updating of Euripides, clashing brashly and inviting its protagonists to step outside. They simmer behind the closed doors of the red brick estate where Rachael Stirling's fine, visceral Medea has been left with their son, Tom, when Adam Levy's cocky, human Jason runs off with the landlord's young daughter, Kate. --The Stage

Bartlett ... has reimagined Euripides' great tragedy in a 21st century where a wedding guest films the death agony of a young bride on her iPhone ... the familiarity of both the setting and the circumstances ... make the horror so much harder to bear. Anna Burnside, Independent Bartlett does more than simply find modern equivalents for classical originals. This Medea is not a barbarian at sea in cultured Corinth, nor has she slain a dragon or sacrificed her family to be there. She is an outsider in other ways ... Bartlett keeps matters tantalisingly balanced ... compelling stuff. --Robert Dawson Scott, The Times