For three weeks during the winter break of 2024, I worked with Professor Anastasia Pantazopoulou on her project Tracing Medea. The project focuses on modern theatrical adaptations of the ancient Greek tragedy Medea by Euripides. The project maps where in the world and when the adaptations were performed as well as the setting of the story in the plays, Medea’s identity, and Jason’s identity. The purpose of the project is to trace how Medea’s identity changes in the different time periods, places, and cultural contexts in which the adaptation is written and performed. Elements considered in determining Medea’s identity were things like her race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sex, sexual orientation, familial role, social status, social attributes, religion, and occupation. The aspects of Medea’s identity that are focused on in each adaptation vary based on the context of the play, therefore the elements of identity included in the project’s identification of Medea also vary.
My role as a Student Research Partner was to read thirteen scripts of modern adaptations of Euripides’ Medea and identify tags to describe Medea’s identity, Jason’s identity, and the setting of the play. Jason’s identity tags were based on the same categories as Medea’s which are listed above. The setting tags considered the time, place, city, country, and cultural context of the story. An example of setting tags for the play Black Medea by Ernest Ferlita are: 1810, New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, Haitian Revolution. In this play, Medea “becomes” Madeleine and Jason “becomes” Jerome. Madeleine or Medea’s identity tags for this play are: Black, Haitian, refugee, woman, mother, voodoo priestess, and murderer. Jerome or Jason’s identity tags are: White, French, refugee, man, father, and former French military officer.
By reading so many different works, I gained an understanding of many styles of plays and adaptations. Some adaptations followed Euripides’s plot, scenes, and characters closely, some changed a lot but kept the main plot points. Others use the same content as Euripides but change the outcome from his. It was interesting to see the playwrights’ creative choices like what characters they focused on, whether it was the chorus, the children, or Medea. Another aspect of the style of plays that I noticed changed a lot between plays was how language was used. For example, in the play MedEia by Oscar van Woensel, the script was a long string of words composed of short lines of prose and song lyrics. The use of language in By the Bogs of Cats, which takes place in Ireland, was a form of English different from what I am used to reading
because different word forms and spellings were used. Another example is Pecong by Steve Carter which used different grammatical structures than I am used to reading. Plays like The Hungry Woman: Mexican Medea by Cherríe Moraga and Manhattan Medea by Dea Loher used multiple languages to emphasize a certain aspect of her identity such as ethnicity or immigrant status. Six of the plays I read were in a collection of adaptations of Medea called Black Medea edited by Kevin J. Whetmore Jr. In the book, there was an introduction to each play followed by an interview with the playwright; so, it was really interesting to get background on the playwright’s process, thoughts, and reflections on their work.
It was a new experience to read through so many modern plays. I am used to experiencing plays in the theatre while watching and hearing the actors, so it was a new experience to only see the words rather than having a set, actors’ voices, and performances to enhance the story. I enjoyed imagining how the set and actors would have added to the script. Some scripts included pictures of performances which were cool to see. I really enjoyed working on this project and I look forward to reading or watching more modern adaptations of Greek tragedies in the future.