Euripides
MEDEA
by Kathy McKean
In this urgent new adaptation after Euripides, Kathy McKean brings Medea startlingly close. In a space between myth and modernity, an outsider in Corinth watches her life rewritten: Jason trades the woman who saved him for power, and Creon offers exile as “mercy”. With no chorus of citizens to hide behind, the audience becomes witness, jury, confidant—drawn into Medea’s fierce intelligence, corrosive grief and incandescent rage.
McKean’s language is contemporary, muscular and lyrical, honouring the epic scale of Greek tragedy while exposing its intimate damage: love as compulsion, humiliation as fuel, vengeance as a force that burns everyone it touches. Medea fights to reclaim her story, her children and the sovereignty of her own heart. Written for a small cast—Nurse, Tutor, Jason and Creon—it builds to a breathtaking, brutal reckoning: terrifying, exhilarating and impossible to forget. A bold, accessible classic for modern audiences.
CAST: 4 actors
DURATION: 90 minutes
Additional content:
- Foreword by actor Nicole Cooper
- Introduction by writer Kathy McKean
- Director’s note by Gordon Barr
- Questions for Study & Discussion
“Kathy McKean’s powerful new version of Euripides’ Medea burns with rage and rips at the heart”
Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman
This contemporary, accessible version of Euripides’ Medea is suitable for teaching Classical Studies in translation, especially around the themes of conflict and women in society.
The Salamander Street Classics series offers classical plays in fresh, contemporary versions that preserve the writer’s structure, tone and imagery while connecting anew with today’s actors and audiences.
