Medea, the Musical
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| Medea, the Musical | |
|---|---|
| Written by | John Fisher |
| Date premiered | 1994 |
| Place premiered | United States |
| Original language | English |
| Subject | LGBT culture Greek mythology Play within a play |
| Genre | Musical comedy |
Medea, the Musical is a 1994 musical comedy by American playwright John Fisher. The play, a farce, concerns a theater director's attempt to recast Medea, the ancient Greek tragedy by Euripides, as a serious modern commentary on LGBT culture, which goes humorously wrong when the director's cast and crew refuse to conform to the stereotyped roles he has created for them. The play became a long-running "cult favorite" in San Francisco in the mid-1990s before touring regionally.[1] Not to be confused with Medea The Musical written by English actress and playwright Hayley Canham which premiered in Cambridge in 2022.[2]
- The "Auteur", or theater director, who has rewritten Medea and is now trying to rehearse and stage the play, portrayed in some productions by Fisher himself[3]
- Paul, who plays Jason in the production, and while not acting is lead singer of a disco band, the Argonauts
- Elsa, who plays Medea
- Actors playing Phaedra, Hippolytus, Aphrodite, the King of Colchis, Eros, Apsyrtus, and other mythological figures from the Greek play
- The piano player and stage manager[4]
- "The rocker", a young gay rock star[4]
- Princess Tamalpa (a mythical Miwok Indian woman after whom Mount Tamalpais is named)[3]
Plot
The Auteur is rehearsing a production of the ancient Greek tragedy Medea, for the "Euripides festival".[5] He has set the play as a serious commentary on contemporary gay issues.
Things start to go wrong when Paul (playing Jason, the hero of Medea), who has not been attracted to women since kindergarten, falls in love with leading lady Elsa (playing Medea, Jason's lover), a straight feminist.[6] The two, disappointed with what they consider a sexist portrayal of Medea as a muse and victim of Jason's ambitions in both the original and the Auteur's retelling, conspire to rewrite the play to promote a feminist agenda. This upsets the Auteur, who is hostile to feminism,[6] and "grosses out" the rest of the cast, each of whom has their own reason for resenting the pair's unlikely off-stage relationship.[3]
On opening night the play falls completely apart, as the cast members revolt against the Auteur's direction. A theater critic from Time Magazine gives the play a glowing review, believing that the chaos was intentional. However, the audience of the play (as attributed by the actors to the real-life theater audience), knows that the play is a failure, both in performance and in its failure to present a coherent commentary on gay issues.[6]