A high-octane musical adaptation of Euripides’ play written in Battle Rap verse, this brand new hip hop version of Medea sheds contemporary light on the classic tragedy.
RED BULL THEATER and BEDLAM present
MEDEA: RE-VERSED
by LUIS QUINTERO
A world premiere Co-Production with
HUDSON VALLEY SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL
Adapted from Euripides
Co-Conceived and Directed by NATHAN WINKELSTEIN
Scenery | Emmie Finckel
Costumes | Nicole Wee
Lighting | Cha See
Sound | Matt Otto
Music Director | Mark Martin
Movement Director | Tiffany Rachelle Stewart
Production Stage Manager | Janelle Caso
Featuring
Siena D'Addario
Melissa Mahoney
Mark Martin
Jacob Ming-Trent
Luis Quintero
Stephen Michael Spencer
Sarin Monae West
LIMITED
OFF-BROADWAY ENGAGEMENT
September 12 - October 20, 2024
THE SHEEN CENTER SHINER THEATRE
18 Bleecker Street | New York, NY 10012
CAST in alphabetical order
Guitar | SIENA D'ADDARIO
Bass | MELISSA MAHONEY
Beatboxer | MARK MARTIN
Creon / Ageus / Messenger | JACOB MING-TRENT
Chorus Leader / Emcee | LUIS QUINTERO
Jason | STEPHEN MICHAEL SPENCER
Medea | SARIN MONAE WEST
PRODUCTION TEAM
Director | Nathan Winkelstein
Scenic Design | Emmie Finckel
Costume Design | Nicole Wee
Lighting Design | Cha See
Sound Design | Matt Otto
Music Director | Mark Martin
Movement Director | Tiffany Rachelle Stewart
Props Master | Buffy Cardoza
Production Stage Manager | Janelle Caso
Assistant Stage Manager | Jessica Fornear
General Manager | Sherri Kotimsky
Production Manager | Gary Levinson
Press Representative | David Gersten & Associates
Key Art Design | Ligature Creative
Production Video | Bardo Arts/Alex Pearlman
Production Photography | Carol Rosegg
THE CREATIVE TEAM
ABOUT THE PLAY
by TANYA POLLARD | Professor of English, Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, CUNY
How do you solve a problem like Medea? Her infamy is larger than life; it resists the constraints of the stage. There have been other terrifying anti-heroes in the history of tragedy, but a woman capable of killing her own children threatens to break the bounds of imagination. Even Lady Macbeth, a theatrical descendant who imagines dashing out the brains of a nursing infant, can’t steel herself to carry out actual violence, and ultimately subsides into madness and suicide. Medea, though, ends her play not beaten down but darkly triumphant. In the final scene of Euripides’ tragedy, she turns up to taunt her defeated husband from a winged chariot suspended above the stage. By occupying the position reserved for the deus ex machina, Medea reminds us that she’s semi-divine, the granddaughter of the sun god Helios. “There’s a deity’s entity in my identity,” she tells us in this brilliant adaptation. A supernaturally powered fury, she refuses to be reduced to human fragility.
Theatrical productions often try to humanize Medea by presenting her as descending into weakness and insanity after her husband’s abandonment. In Euripides’ version of her story, however, she’s defined less by heartbreak than by steely, strategic vindictiveness. Proud, fierce, and intent on honor, she’s a kind of epic hero whose fight lies in the domestic sphere. Jason has disrespected her by breaking his wedding vows, solemn oaths made before the gods, and her task is to ensure that he’s punished. Quintero gives us a Medea similarly defined by her power and insistence on justice. “There’s no peace for those / Who break oaths with me,” she warns Ageus. Later she tells the Chorus, “Now I see just how this ends / Justice for revenge.” Medea’s plan reflects a careful calculation to maximize Jason’s suffering, rather than a desperate burst of emotional frenzy.
Medea is defined above all by her acute intelligence. As a sorcerer, she’s defined by her skill with poisons and potions, and as an avenger, she deploys her words as drugs. She lulls Jason into complacency by playing the part of a weak, injured woman, flattering his ego while working out the components of her plan. Hip hop, with its rapid-fire swaggering verbal dexterity, offers a thrilling vehicle for this unsettling demigod. Luis Quintero’s incantatory rhymes situate Medea in a new version of Greek tragedy’s ritualized world, neither ancient nor modern but partaking of both. This is not just any domestic tragedy – as the chorus leader reminds us, “There’s Gods in this house.” The play dazzles with verbal pyrotechnics, promising the audience to “keep it clear with rhythm and stichomythia / so you can listen here to the tragedy of Medea.” But at its heart it asks us to examine what we’re doing in the theater, vicariously experiencing someone else’s catastrophe. “For there to be a tragedy somebody has to pay,” the chorus points out. “Who does it cost for us to pay to see a tragedy?”