Euripides’ Medea, written in the fifth century BC, is primarily seen as a story of betrayal and vengeance. Love, magic, and fury collide in this timeless tragedy, which has stayed relevant for centuries since its creation.
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Jagriti Theatre in Bengaluru is producing a reinterpretation of this play, which features Rebecca Spurgeon as its director and Kirtana Kumar as its sole actor. This version of Medea confronts the depths of despair, the searing pain of betrayal, and the lengths a woman will go to protect her children and herself. This isn’t a typical Medea, driven solely by vengeance. This will be a Medea of our time, a reflection of countless women throughout history who have been forced to the brink of fear, exile, and the desperate need for safety.
The play will witness the raw emotions of a mother on the edge, a woman grappling with the unthinkable. It asks these questions: Is she a monster capable of unimaginable acts? Or is she a survivor, clinging to the last shreds of her humanity in a world that has stripped her of everything?
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But what prompted Rebecca to recreate this ancient play?
“I’ve always returned to stories of this experience of what it means to be a woman,” she says. “I think a lot about how women are represented in stories and the place that literature holds for them. Even as a young literature student, I was fascinated with Medea. To create a performance piece with this character has always been on my bucket list.”
Rebecca also found the play’s themes of war, exile, and statelessness still relevant. So, she started creating it with Kirtana in November 2022.
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Rebecca and Kirtana wanted to make Medea relevant to the local audience but avoided Indianising it.
“The play has undergone significant editing, primarily because it originally featured multiple characters, and adapting it into a solo performance required careful consideration,” says Rebecca. Though she hasn’t explicitly contemporised the play, the audience will be provided subtle clues about the setting through staging and sound design.
“The focus was on identifying gestures that would resonate with an Indian audience,” says Kirtana, “We wanted to explore the potential of conveying meaning through gestures, movements, costumes, and even sound, providing subtle hints and clues to assist the audience in constructing the narrative. We deliberately avoided simplifications such as wearing a certain kind of robe to show the period of the story.”
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This isn’t the first time Kirtana, 57, is portraying Medea. She did it in her 30s. She says the experiences were starkly different.
“When I first portrayed Medea at 30, my interpretation was focused solely on anger. It portrayed pure indignation fueled by a sense of injustice that demanded correction. However, revisiting the role at 57 has brought a richer spectrum of emotions. The performance now encompasses negotiation, emotional manipulation, and a profound sense of rejection that comes with aging.
“Unlike the sense of possibility and potential at 30, the rejection at 57 signifies the closure of many opportunities. The narrowing possibilities include the realms of romance, love, the envisioning of a future, and the very essence of life itself.”
The 70-minute English play will be staged on February 2, 3, and 4 at Jagriti Theatre. Tickets on bookmyshow.com