MEDEA

Euripides

Directed by Jaclyn I Pryor 

Scenic & Lighting Design: Peter Ksander

Costume Design: Caitlin Cisek

Sound Design & Composition: Ryan Gamblin

Associate Sound Design & Composition: Asher Smith

This Brechtian interpretation of an ancient Greek tragedy examines the ways in which the machinations of storytelling, our understandings of time, and the ways in which the characters relate to each other across gender, class, and national origin inform and ultimately drive the protagonist’s decision to commit the ultimate climactic action.

The design of this work relied on the use of a chorus (informed by both the traditional Greek chorus and the use of song to convey narrative in contemporary theatre) who sang original compositions, often accompanied by live harmonium, played by the associate sound designer and co-composer Asher Smith. While this created a spiritual, religious, often ritualist sensibility, the pre-recorded playback audio spoke more to the language of traditional contemporary theatrical sound design, and used audio from many works from the Western theatrical canon. With this dichotomy, we presented the ritualism and spiritual power of theatre-making alongside its contemporary vocabulary, amplifying the reverberations of stories such as this one across time.