Medea

ΜEDEA was commissioned by Spyros Mercouris, the brother of Melina. On  the night Melina attended a performance of THE SONGS (1991), she came  backstage, put her feet up on the table, lit a cigarette, and said:  “This is the sort of wine I’d like to export.” Two years later, and as  we were putting on our make-up to take the publicity shots for Medea,  her death was announced on the radio.

The cast of MEDEA was  originally different. I was to have played Medea, with Stavros Zalmas as  Jason, and Angeliki Stellatou in the role of Glauce. Stavros left the  company after a couple of rehearsals, and the remaining performers  shifted between the parts; thus audiences were given the opportunity to  see Angeliki Stellatou at her best on stage. The two standout elements  of the production were Nikos Alexiou’s set, and my design for Medea’s  dress.

This work was destined to become the biggest hit of  Edafos. It signalled our exit from the alternative, sixty-seat squat  theatre to the 700-seat National Theatre Stage for our first five  sell-out shows (tickets for the final two performances were being sold  on the black market).

Emotionally accessible to all, but at the  same time quite abstract, the success of this piece lies mainly in the  storytelling. Simple, majestic, and decorative up until the moment of  the betrayal, the play suddenly becomes dangerous, and when the tragic  drama takes over, it seems as if everything will be destroyed before our  very eyes. It is as if the myth meets the tragedy half way through the  work. The characters of the myth are presented as archetypes, while the  character devised for the purposes of this production, the Dog, embodies  the dark instinct of Medea, and acts as a kind of sinister master of  ceremonies, protecting the sorceress but at the same time ensuring that  everything is steered towards the tragic conclusion.

Source: dimitrispapaioannou.com