Adaptations of Euripides' "Medea" Story

Markus Emerson

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Essay from the year 2011 in the subject Literature - Comparative Literature, grade: 1, , course: Theatre of the World, language: ...

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Essay from the year 2011 in the subject Literature - Comparative Literature, grade: 1, , course: Theatre of the World, language: English, abstract: Mythical literature depends upon, incites even, perpetual acts of reinterpretation in new contexts, a process that embodies the very idea of appropriation. Euripides' play "Medea", based on a Greek myth about Medea has been made in a sheer endless number of new adaptations for the stage. Betrayed after leaving her home with Jason, Medea kills both her children. This core of the story usually remains but new contexts are explored in the appropriation and re-interpretation of the original. The power of such new adaptations partly comes from a sense of immediacy that is created through a connection between stage and real life of the audiences. This connection is reached through contextualisation of the performance. Through the addition of new layers of meaning, directors of the 'new' Medea stories give the plays new contexts in time and space. In the following essay, I argue that this contextualisation and adding of new layers can be reached through the aesthetic choices about marginal characters like the nurse and the inclusion of a figure like the beggar. Their presence adds depth and complexity to the new issues that are explored in the Medea stories.