Medea

Satoshi Miyagi, celebrated Artistic Director of Japan’s SPAC (Shizuoka Performing Arts Center), confronts the haunting legacy of empire with a spectacular contemporary reinterpretation of Euripides’ Medea, set in Japan’s late 19th-century Meiji era.

Through breath-taking visual symbolism, traditional music, and a form-defying performance, tradition and experimentation are fused in a bold postcolonial feminist retelling of Euripides’ classic. In Miyagi’s signature style, each character is played by two performers: a “speaker,” here played by men, and a “mover,” played by women, using movement rooted in kabuki technique.

Medea is the shocking story of a woman who, betrayed and cast aside by her treacherous lover, takes hideous revenge by murdering the children they both love.

During the male-dominated Meiji era imperial ambition masked itself as modernisation. Male diners at a traditional restaurant summon female waitresses for entertainment, and the tragic tale of Medea unfolds as a play-within-a-play. Miyagi uses Euripides’ tragedy to create a searing critique of nationalism, gendered oppression, and colonial violence.

This stunning and internationally acclaimed production, which has travelled to 20 cities and 11 countries, provides a fresh, dynamic take on this timeless story of grief, betrayal, and vengeance.

In Japanese with English surtitles.