Medea

Simon Stone finds a contemporary reality for this masterful retelling of Euripides’ Medea.

After involuntary confinement in a psychiatric hospital, Anna, once a successful doctor, is determined to put things right. Willing to forgive her husband’s affair with a younger woman, she wants a fresh start with him and their children. But he has different plans. Sidelined and in danger of losing everything, she is driven into a corner and sees only one way out.

Marieke Heebink, seen at the Barbican in Toneelgroep’s astonishing Persona last year, won the Dutch acting award, the Theo d’Or, for her role as Medea. Coupled with incomparable performances by the ensemble, magnified at times by live video, audiences are turned into complicit witnesses.

An Australian director who reinvents classics, Stone gained five-star reviews at the Barbican for The Wild Duck in 2014 whilst his recent production of Yerma won multiple Olivier Awards.

Medea is performed in Dutch with English surtitles.