Summary
I am obsessed with Greek tragedy. My name is Zach Hooper, and I will be directing Euripides' Medea. I am a recent graduate of St. John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico where I read and discussed the classics of the Western world as well as acted in several plays and directed two. One of the scholastic things I did there was study Ancient Greek and read a great deal of Greek tragedies, including Euripides' Medea.
Here is a basic summary of the play: Medea is the wife of Jason, the famous Jason of the Argonauts, who stole Medea away from her home (as was pretty common in Greek mythology) to make her his wife. This was fine with Medea until the events that the play opens upon- Jason has slept with another woman, the daughter of King Creon, and plans to marry her. Medea loses it- and plots to kill Jason's new lover and the children Medea and Jason had together.
My interpretation of this play is inspired by both Virginia Woolf and Anne Carson. I believe the Greeks were particularly in tune with the body, as Virginia Woolf talks about, and that through their works we can see they had an intuition based on an intense physicality. They lived in a world that did not know of the Cartesian split between mind and body, and so it never occurred to them to ever consider the two entities as separate or different. Due to this, I believe they had a deeper understanding of humanity than any peoples that have come since.
The other big point for me is the feminist nature of Euripides' plays. He is well known for siding with the less privileged people of Greek society in his plays, most often women. This made male-dominated Greece pretty mad, but I think that today it is a beautiful and useful insight into power, abuse, sexuality and gender in a society that was even more sexist than ours is today.
I hope to blend these themes together to revive Medea and Greek tragedy in general for today's public, so more people can see how relevant the Greeks are to the modern world.
The show is being produced at the ATM Studio in Austin, Texas. The exact show dates are TBD but it will be sometime in January 2015.
What We Need & What You Get
We are asking for $2500 to pay for costumes, sound equipment and set building. Most of the money will be spent on costumes as I consider those very important. I would guess around $1000 will be spent on costumes alone and the rest will be used for things such as renting a PA system, building risers for the audience to sit in, lights and other miscellaneous set items. No one in this project is getting paid- we are all just doing it for the sake of itself!
If you donate there are several things we can offer- DVD copies of the play, signed pictures or postcards of the actors or scenes from the play, costume pieces, etc. Anything we can ship to you from the production, really! If you happen to be in the Austin area or can get here for the show, you will have front row seats and free drinks.
The Impact
The entire point of this project is to inspire a love of Greek tragedy in the community at large. Not only that, but I wanted to produce this play outside any established theater community and with no established actors so that people not involved in the Austin theater community would get a chance to see this- and to make the point that theater is not some archaic art form for a niche group, but can be performed in galleries or anywhere, and for any audience, as this play will be.
Risks & Challenges
At this point the two biggest challenges are the usual- time and money. Time-wise there is only around 2 months available for us to get this play up and running. That is not too much an issue for me, however, as when I was a student the plays I worked on then were very often produced in rather short time frames or with the little free time I had outside of being a student (all theater was extracurricular). Money-wise, we have nothing. So far I've paid for a few things out of pocket, but that will very quickly become impossible. And that is where you can help!
Other Ways You Can Help
If you can't give money that is alright, just share this page and tell everyone you know. Also, if you are gonna be in Austin in January, come to the show!
