Re-interpreting shadow material in an ancient Greek myth: 'Another Night: Medea'

This chapter deals with some of the issues that Australian experimental theatre has raised in its efforts to adapt plays of the western theatrical canon, in order to make it familiar to an audience not used to its traditions. The performance presented draws on a broad variety of sources such as plays, music, film, collective and personal daily history to investigate aspects of an archetypal myth that is characterized by extreme violence. Medea's dark figure is both saved and dissolved through its multiple representations and its interactions with other multifaceted characters, which are not always in accordance with the original myth. The interest of such an approach lies in the fact that it situates Medea in new psychological spaces, emphasising the easily forgotten notion that, above all and despite the horror, the myth of Medea is a story about love.