Oksana Dmitrieva’s review of Medea’s performance
At the end of March, Oksana Dmitrieva put Medea’s « Medea » in the Frankivsk Drama Theater by Euripid and Heiner Muller. Konstantin Zorkin created setgraphy and costumes, Kateryna Palachova – music, and Dmitry Lecka – choreography.
To stress the director, she adapted the classic text of Euripide and a more modern rethinking of the tragedy by German playwright Gaer Muller, who in 1982 created his version of « Medea » – « The abandoned coast. Medea. Material. Landscape with Argonauts. »
Euripide was taken as a basis by the ancient myth of Medea, the daughter of the Colchic king, who, falling in love with Yason, the Argonaut leader, helps him get the golden fleece and get out of Colchis. For the sake of his beloved Medea he kills his brother and leaves his homeland, moving into Hellas.
For the sake of his beloved Medea kills his brother and leaves his homeland by moving to Hellas
Frankivsk Drama Theater
However, the marriage of Yason and Medea was short -lived. Jason, justifying the care of the future of a family who has been in a hard time, decides to leave his wife and marry at the daughter of Creoon Corinth. Medea is avenging her husband, killing his bride, her father and, after all, her children with Jasson.
Heiner Muller, known for his critical GDR regime, plays and productions, in later creativity, is partly forced, referring to the rethinking of classical texts, including Euripides. This is how Muller’s « Medea » appears – a text consisting of three parts, which are only superficially sent to ancient myth and tragedy.
Muller’s play is a devastating sentence with a socialist regime and human civilization in general, powerless before his own problems.
Heiner Muller depicts a world where any attempt to update is just a simulation of change, a desperate reproduction of what was before, evidence of helplessness and hopelessness. The German playwright interprets Medea as a little more than the revenge of the betrayed woman, because the murder of her own children is trying to break any connection with Jasson. At the cost of her own suffering, she is released from emotional, almost subconscious dependence on her husband. This « Revolution, aimed Medea gives hope for real changes.
Muller’s play is a devastating sentence by a socialist regime and human civilization in general, powerless before their own problems
Frankivsk Drama Theater
Oksana Dmitrieva creates a performance in which Medea is a director, a playwright and the main character. She writes the text herself and plays the main role. ”Who am I? – a stranger and barbaric? « , FromAdvisor, harlot, apostate, wrapper, murderer? But maybe deceived, driven into a despair, devastated and burned from the middle of the eyewitness, survived?
Oksana Dmitrieva creates a play in which Medea is a director, a playwright and the main character
Frankivsk Drama Theater
Unlike Euripides and Muller’s texts, Dmitrieva’s production does not objectify Medea and does not turn it into the background or « material »and gives it full subjectivity not only to answer the questions, but also to ask them.
Without waiting for Yason (in the play – Andrey Melnyk) « Who were you up to me? »Medea Nadiya Levchenko begins a performance on a question that he poses to himself, because « We need to talk about yourself« Otherwise, Oksana Dmitriev does not give the voice of Medea in his own delicate manner, but makes him heard.
Dmitrieva’s production does not objectify Medea and does not turn it into background or « material »
Frankivsk Drama Theater
The action takes place in the amphitheater, erected on the main stage. The audience, sitting with their backs to the hall of the drama, become part of the performance. They are witnesses and accomplices of action at the same time. This « theater in the theater » creates a sense of the performance even when it is over, because the audience needs to go down from the amphitheater into an empty hall so that the scene leaves the last actor.
The action takes place in an amphitheater erected on the main scene
Frankivsk Drama Theater
Dmitrieva and Zorkin combine two texts of Euripide and Muller – from the ranks of the ancient amphitheater people look at their apocalyptic receptivity to make sure that it all happens with them here and now: « The future » has come. Even after leaving the theater, the spooky scenes of military, real life remind themselves almost every day.
In Medea, Oksana Dmitrieva continues to explore Ukrainians, breaking the most sensitive topic – identity and belonging. « Medea » Dmitrieva tries to find himself that « Daisson », the real one who does not yet know the « benefits of civilization » that bear argonauts, one that has neither debt, nor the brand of belonging to the « great people ».
In Medea, Oksana Dmitrieva continues to explore Ukrainians, breaking the topic of identity and belonging
Frankivsk Drama Theater
She is looking for herself – a non -betrayal of herself and her people, unburdened with unprecedented memoriality In this search, Medea finds all new layers of his « I », which complicate the answer to the question of which she was to Jason? Did it exist at all? Does she have the right to life without her husband? How to understand which of the layers is specific to it and what is worth getting rid of the civilizational plaque of the invaders? What remains when the price is still found to find itself, the primary source, the basis?
Director Oksana Dmitrieva
Frankivsk Drama Theater
“Bombing”, Muller says mercilessly. After all, we only have the strength to hate. The director’s performance avoids this categoricality and, moreover, the totality of the apocalypse.
« Medea » Oksana Dmitrieva seems to be reminiscent that in search of primitives everything depends on who we were to enslave – Tabula Rasa Is Palimpste? Resarential and enmity are only waiting for those who, with the colonial heritage, get rid of their single value layer. Those who find the layers of their precolonial past will be able to create new ones.
