Stories are told for a purpose. They can inspire, they change minds, they reflect life and culture, and they evolve as minds, people and societies change.
The University of Idaho Theatre Department is taking a stab at retelling the popular story of Medea, a woman who killed her own children in a state of desperation.
Nick Pratt | Argonaut
Acting professor Kelly Quinnett performs her role as one of three Medeas at UI theater departments dress rehearsal for Medea: Her Story.
Medea is often portrayed as a villain who murdered her own children in cold blood. Medea will finally have her story told, said Professor Kelly Quinnett, head of acting at UI.
Quinnett said she will be performing as one of the three versions of Medea being portrayed in the theater department’s play “Medea: Her Story.” The show begins at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 13-15 and Oct. 20-22 and at 2 p.m. Oct. 16 and 23 in the Hartung Theatre.
The play originated years ago in the imagination of Professor Jesse Dreikosen, the show’s costume and scenic designer, who said he wanted to explore Medea’s story with a wider scope of information than the most popular versions have.
“I sort of approached Matt Foss and Kelly Quinnett with this idea about telling Medea’s (story) through the eyes of all of the myths that are out there and really looking at her as a child and all the way through,” he said.
Quinnett said she was excited to be involved with the play and bring new understanding to an older version.
“I really found it provocative that we could tear open that story and look at who she really is, and make the audience experience who she really is,” she said.
Theater and directing student Maiya Corral is a co-director of the play, who did most of the research for the play last spring. She said people usually think of Euripides’ version of Medea and do not have further context. She said that when the play was written, it was likely those who watched it knew the myths surrounding Medea and came to the show with that understanding, something she said audiences of today do not have.
“For us, hundreds of years later, we don’t have a lot,” Corral said. “We don’t really know her. We only know her based on this very old, beautiful but old, ancient text by Euripides.”
She said they wanted to bring some of that perspective back by going into depth about Medea’s journey as a girl, making the play a coming-of-age story rather than a tragedy.
“We focused a lot on how to go back through Medea’s life as when she first met Jason, and kind of show who she was outside of the horrific events that happened at the end of Euripides’s play,” she said.
Medea’s story is told through flashbacks, Dreikosen said. He said in the play, the elder Medea, played by Quinnett, reflects on her younger self, who is portrayed by B.F.A. candidate in theater performance Olivia Longin.
Dreikosen said he wanted to show who Medea truly was and the events that pushed her to the point of infanticide, as well as provoking thoughts about humanity and the impacts of sexism.
“I really wanted to talk about how our young women still aren’t in line with our young boys,” he said.
Longin said she thinks it is important for these conversations to happen now, considering the upcoming election and the issues of equality facing the country.
“A story like this, I think, could be a really, really important one to show the cycle we have become accustomed to and how it really is a man’s world,” she said.
Corral said there is an overall theme of suppression and oppression of women while exploring the relationship with oneself.
Corral said it was inspiring to see the off-stage relationship between Quinnett and Longin, which she said seemed like a metaphor for the process of pulling the play together and the mentorship, especially between women, that took place.
Professor Matt Foss, the director of Medea, said the production has been highly collaborative.
“We’ve created a pretty living breathing text that we’ll probably be changing up through Thursday,” he said.
Quinnett said the script has been constantly changing since the beginning of rehearsals in order to communicate the message of the play as clearly as possible. She said this process is one of the many things that makes the play unique.
“I don’t think anybody will ever have seen anything like this. I really don’t. I haven’t been in anything like this, nor have I been in workshop with a journey like this,” Quinnett said.
Nina Rydalch
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