Cyclops, Alcestis, Medea (Loeb Classical Library)

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In November 1997 National Theatre of Greece launched a worldwide tour of Medea, a critically acclaimed production directed by Nikaiti Kontouri, starring Karyofyllia Karambeti as Medea, Kostas Triantafyllopoulos as Creon and Lazaros Georgakopoulos as Jason. The tour included performances in France, Australia, Israel, Portugal, United States, Canada, Turkey, Bulgaria, China and Japan and lasted almost two years, until July 1999. [38] [39] The play opened in the United States at Shubert Theatre in Boston (18 and 19 September 1998) and then continued at City Center Theatre in Manhattan, New York City (23 to 27 September 1998), receiving a very positive review from The New York Times. [40]

The King of Corinth, Creon banishes Medea from the city. Although a minor character, Creon's suicidal embrace of his dying daughter provides one of the play's most dramatic moments, and his sentence against Medea lends an urgency to her plans for revenge. Glauce Murray, Gilbert, ed. Euripidis Fabulae, Vol. 1: Cyclops, Alcestis, Medea, Heraclidae, Hippolytus, Andromache, Hecuba. Oxford Classical Texts. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1901. Kaggelaris, N. (2017). " "Euripides in Mentis Bostantzoglou's Medea", [in Greek] Carpe Diem 2". Carpe Diem 2: 379–417 . Retrieved 1 June 2018. As Roisman observes in her final chapter, the variety of conditions to which tragic women are subjected combined with the diversity of their characteristics, personalities, and motivations, makes it difficult to generalize about their function and status, or to compare their representations, within Greek drama as a whole. Parallels, she argues, can more productively be drawn by age group. Adolescent girls tend to be intransigent and stubborn, unafraid of dying for their beliefs or exacting revenge. Older women, particularly mothers, act only when men harm, or threaten to harm, them or their children. Both groups, however, suffer the consequences of male decisions and face impossible situations which most cannot overcome. As a solution, Clytemnestra, Hecuba, Medea, and Electra, gravitate towards or commit murder, while Alcestis, Antigone, Deianeira, and Phaedra find no alternative other than to die. The last three, Iphigeneia, Creusa, and Helen, are survivors, who alone manage to endure their tragic circumstances, mainly through divine intervention. Rutland Boughton's 1922 opera Alkestis is based on the Gilbert Murray translation. [11] It was performed at Covent Garden by the British National Opera Company and was broadcast by the nascent British Broadcasting Company, both in 1924. [11]Macintosh, Fiona; Kenward, Claire; Wrobel, Tom (2016). Medea, a performance history. Oxford: APGRD. Kovacs, David, ed. and trans. Euripides: Cyclops, Alcestis, Medea. Loeb Classical Library 12. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001: An accurate prose translation with facing Greek text; can be viewed online through the Perseus Project.

Archive of the National Theatre of Greece, Photo of Kostas Triantafyllopoulos as Creon in Euripides' Medea at the State Theatre of Sydney, Australia on 22 – 24 May 1998"]. a b c Lootens, Barbara J. (1986). "Images of Women in Greek Drama". Feminist Teacher. 2 (1): 24–28. ISSN 0882-4843. JSTOR 25680553. In November 2008, Theatre Arcadia, under the direction of Katerina Paliou, staged Medea at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina ( University of Alexandria, Egypt). The production was noted (by Nehad Selaiha of the weekly Al-Ahram) not only for its unexpected change of plot at the very end but also for its chorus of one hundred who alternated their speech between Arabic and English. The translation used was that of George Theodoridis. February– 6 March 2016 in Austin at the Long Center for the Performing Arts starring Franchelle Stewart Dorn as Medea and directed by Ann Ciccolella.Yet many scholars and critics have questioned Admetus’ supposed virtue: was it right for Admetus to ask his loved ones to die for him? Even some of his seemingly virtuous actions can be deemed inappropriate. Notably, by entertaining Heracles, Admetus breaks the promise he made Alcestis to ban all revelry and music from his home after she died (to say nothing of the lies he tells Heracles in the process, or even the basic respect his actions deny the dead Alcestis). Admittedly, some of the text’s genre problems are actually quite minor: for instance, the Alcestis is not any less of a tragedy for using humor or concluding (at least ostensibly) with a happy ending, as such features can be found in a number of Attic tragedies. Nonetheless, the combination of its unusual performative context, its questioning of traditional values, and its pervasive ambiguity make it a difficult work to classify and interpret. Themes Weber, Carl, ed. & trans. 1989. Explosion of a Memory: Writings by Heiner Müller. By Heiner Müller. New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications. ISBN 1-55554-041-4. Hyginus Fabulae 25; Ovid Met. 7.391ff.; Seneca Medea; Bibliotheca 1.9.28 favors Euripides' version of events, but also records the variant that the Corinthians killed Medea's children in retaliation for her crimes.

The chorus, which consists of fifteen old men of Pherae, enters the orchestra and divides into two semi-choruses. Confused by the silence and the absence of groans and cries, the men ask each other whether Alcestis, “the best of wives to her husband,” is dead or still alive. They know this is the fated day, but they secretly hope for some miracle or any kind of good news. Noticing a maidservant stepping out of the palace, they realize that they are about to find out. First Episode Alcestis enters, supported by servants and followed by Admetus and their two children. She is dying. Admetus is overcome by grief and promises Alcestis he will never remarry. After asking Admetus to honor her and treat their children justly, Alcestis says a final goodbye to her family and dies. One of the children delivers a brief lament, after which Admetus imposes a year of mourning on his kingdom of Pherae. The Chorus, left alone on stage, wishes their beloved queen a blessed afterlife and predicts that poets will lavishly praise her virtues. Arrowsmith, William, trans. Euripides: Alcestis. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974: Readable verse translation. Tondo of an Attic red-figure cup by the Brygos Painter showing Apollo (left) and his sister Artemis (right) (ca. 470 BCE) Louvre Museum, Paris / Marie-Lan Nguyen Public DomainWhile Medea is considered one of the great plays of the Western canon, Euripides' place in the competition suggests that his first audience might not have responded so favorably. A scholium to line 264 of the play suggests that Medea's children were traditionally killed by the Corinthians after her escape; [7] so Euripides' apparent invention of the filicide might have offended, as his first treatment of the Hippolytus myth did. [8] That Euripides and others took liberties with Medea's story may be inferred from the 1st century BC historian Diodorus Siculus: "Speaking generally, it is because of the desire of the tragic poets for the marvellous that so varied and inconsistent an account of Medea has been given out." [9] A common urban legend claimed that Euripides put the blame on Medea because the Corinthians had bribed him with a sum of five talents. [10] OedipusEnders, a documentary broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 13 April 2010, discussed similarities between soap opera and Greek theatre. One interviewee revealed that the writers for the ITV police drama series The Bill had consciously and directly drawn on Medea in writing an episode for the series. [51] Thanatos, the divine personification of death, enters and explains that he has come to claim Alcestis. Apollo fails to convince Thanatos to spare the poor woman, but before he departs, Apollo hints that Heracles will ultimately take Alcestis from Thanatos by force. Christian Science Monitor Zoe Caldwell's 'Medea,' a theatrical mountaintop; Medea Tragedy by Euripides, freely adapted by Robinson Jeffers. Directed by Robert Whitehead

The plot of Doctor Foster is actually 2,500 years old, reveals writer Mike Bartlett". Radio Times . Retrieved 4 November 2019. In some play adaptations, Jason is played as a sympathetic figure who is manipulated by Medea, rather than a conniving opportunist.

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Daughter of Creon, Glauce is the young, beautiful princess for whom Jason abandons Medea. Her acceptance of the poisoned coronet and dress as "gifts" leads to the first murder of the play. Although she never utters a word, Glauce's presence is constantly felt as an object of Medea's jealousy. (Glauce is also referred to as Creusa.) Aegeus Banham, Martin, ed. 1998. The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-43437-8. Waterfield, Robin, trans. Euripides: Heracles and Other Plays. Edited by James Morwood. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008: An accurate, clear, and idiomatic prose translation with thematic introductions.