Medea in the Americas

Greek tragedies were first performed in America in the 1880s but rarely winning critical or popular acclaim, as Karelisa Hartigan notes (2015: vii). Greek drama became gradually more popular in the 1900s with Sophocles' and Euripides' tragic heroines being mostly in the spotlight. Among them Euripides' Medea was the first choice for most well-known actresses, especially from the 1920s onwards. Since then Medea has remained on of the most performed ancient plays on the American stage. 

Medea's popularity lies on the highly theatrical nature of the play and the protagonist's challenging character who lends herself to becoming a vessel for discussions on gender and social equality intertemporally. On the American stage, travelling from New York to Brazil and adapting to the time and place where she is reborn, Medea has become a bisexual woman, a Mexican immigrant, a refugee, a native American, a contemporary scientist always inviting the audience to reflect on their identity and role within their society.

Medea(s) in the Americas: A Photo Collection

"As a whole, U.S. Medeas tend above all to represent the play's complex and multifaceted heroine as the wronged, if horrific, cultural “other,” whether that other is black, mulatto, Native American, Asian, lesbian, a failed beauty queen, a drag queen, or an abused teenage mother."
Helene Foley, Reimagining Greek Tragedy on the American Stage.

Research Questions

  • Where has Medea travelled in the Americas?
  • How has her identity changed in those locations?
  • Are there places where she has been located more than once? Why do you think this is so?

Bibliography

  • Foley, Helene, ed., "Reimagining Medea as American Other." In Reimagining Greek Tragedy on the American Stage, 185-218. Berkley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 2012.
  • Hartigan,Karelisa. “Preface.” In The Oxford Handbook of Greek Drama in the Americas, edited by Kathryn Bosher, Fiona Macintosh, Justine McConnell, and Patrice Rankine, vii-xii. Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2015.
Medea in the Americas