Medea

by Liz Lochhead

"Liz Lochhead’s stunning new version of Medea is the kind of interpretation—brave, visionary, risky—that blows a well-known text apart and reassembles it in a completely new light... What Lochhead does is to recast Medea as an episode—ancient but new, cosmic yet agonizingly familiar—in a sex war which is recognizable to every woman, and most of the men, in the theatre..."—The Scotsman

Genres: Plays, Drama, Mythology, Historical, Retellings, Theatre

Paperback

First published April 1, 2001

About the author

Liz Lochhead is a Scottish poet and dramatist, originally from Newarthill in North Lanarkshire. In the early 1970s she joined Philip Hobsbaum's writers' group, a crucible of creative activity - other members were Alasdair Gray, James Kelman, and Tom Leonard. Her plays include Blood and Ice, Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off (1987), Perfect Days (2000) and a highly acclaimed adaptation into Scots of Molière's Tartuffe (1985). Her adaptation of Euripides' Medea won the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award in 2001. Like her work for theatre, her poetry is alive with vigorous speech idioms; collections include True Confessions and New Clichés (1985), Bagpipe Muzak (1991) and Dreaming Frankenstein: and Collected Poems (1984). She has collaborated with Dundee singer-songwriter Michael Marra.

In January 2011 she was named as the second Scots Makar, or national poet, succeeding Edwin Morgan who had died the previous year.

Reviews

[ciel · Rating 5 out of 5]

having the best time with this!!! can't think of any adaptation this stunning<333 here for all the female rage, brilliant portrayal & critique of patriarchy, and blood bath. addition of the scene between medea and glauke is so beautifully tense and loaded. would do a many things to see this performed.

[Caspar "moved to storygraph" Bryant]

liz's medea which naturally we're all here for ! except my mental health I need a den

[Daria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Medea's story is my favourite greek myth, and the way Lochhead presents it is very interesting. Here we see a Medea whose children get stolen from her, whose rival comes to laugh in her face, who sacrifices everything even when she knows she'll be faced with death. While Euripides's version focuses mostly on Medea as a woman, Medea as vengeance, Lochhead's Medea is the story of a mother that would rather die than be left without her kids. I found the accent work to be very telling of her immigrant status without having it be a central part of the story, and liked the way it isolated her even more from the other characters than she already was. The only reason I give it 4 instead of 5 stars is because I believe some of the parts fell flat compared to the original: I know the reason for that was because Lochhead wanted to bring forward another facet of Medea's, but by following the exact base structure of Euripides's version some parts of the dialogue felt too short and disregarded, only inserted because they existed in the base material.

[Michael Rumney · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this adaptation Lochhead gives Medea a distinct Scottish way with words whereas her antigonists speak a refined English which tells they are foreign to each other.
Medea is out for revenge as basically Jason, her husband has run off with another woman.
That revenge is so brutal and spiteful you lose sympathy for her.
When I saw the play I was fascinated by an all female Greek Chorus which allows the audience to hear a female perspective that Medea can't express in words.
Overall a fascinating interpretation of a classical Greek myth.

[Edie DJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I could give this play a million stars. Simply one of the most fantastic pieces of writing I have ever been blessed to read. An incredible representation of intersectional feminism and what is means to be a woman in a cruel, divided all consuming patriarchy.
If I could have the pleasure of reading this for the first time again I would read it over and over and over.

[Frankie · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Phillip · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this adaptation of Medea (which is not one of my favorite Greek plays), but I really only have two things to say about it. 1) Lochhead's adaptation seems to move quicker than Euripides' play and many of the other adaptations I've read, which I really like. Plays that drag are challenging, and I feel like the pace in this version was brisker than in many other versions. This is especially important for a play like Medea, which really kind of relies on the shock of the incredible violence for much of its effect.
2) The Greek characters spoke Scots, while Medea (a foreigner from Colchis) spoke more of a King's English type dialect. This is pretty interesting because, as Lochhead points out, many Scottish productions of Medea have the heroine sounding Scottish and the Greeks sounding English. This suggests that the Scots remain the exotic other of the UK, and that sense of otherness has been internalized by many Scots themselves. (I know this is a really contentious statement and I wouldn't be prepared to support it as an argument, but I think it's an interesting point).

[Betty · Rating 5 out of 5]

The translation by Liz Lochhead, a Scottish poet and playwright, makes some changes to Euripides' script, although according to Wikipedia the ancient dramatist himself tweaked the traditional story http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medea_%2... . Feminist awareness runs through the story, which is at times a standoff between the views of women and men. Medea's plight does get a reader's sympathy. Jason (of the Argonauts) with whom she is married with three children decides without telling her he's marrying Corinth's princess to improve the material circumstances of the children. Barbarians and quasi-Greeks apparently were underrated in fifth-century-BCE Greece. Medea is about to forgive him when the bride-to-be visits, radiant with love and happiness and dismissive of Medea as a sexually attractive marital partner. The conversation with young Glauke infuriates Medea, whose plan for revenge will alter the future of all the characters.

[Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read ATY 2022: book connected to mythology
reditt redux: book published by indie publisher
Alphabet soup:M
Basically Euripides classic with additional Scots dialect and misandry. Not worth it really

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great adaptation by Liz Lochhead. A spectacular play.

[Claire Sinden · Rating 2 out of 5]

I realize I may be cheating with the amount of plays I've suddenly updated, but HEY, I READ THIS OKAY? And meh, that is about all the excitement I can muster.