Download Medea.

Greek Drama
The essentials to understanding and
appreciating Medea.
Ceremonious
• Humans have always been ceremonious
creatures.
• What ceremonies do we have in modern life?
• It is all drama, all a play that resonates with
us.
Ancient Greeks
• Polytheistic
• Dionysus – god of wine and vegetation. Every
year the Greeks celebrated him by dressing in
goat skins (like satyrs) and dancing.
• in poetic language they would tell of the god’s
triumphs or sufferings.
• A choral hymn called a dithyramb was sung.
Dithyramb
• a wildly enthusiastic speech or piece of writing
• (ancient Greece) a passionate hymn (usually in
honor of Dionysus)
• According to Aristotle, the dithyramb was the
origin of the Ancient Greek theatre
This celebration evolved
• A permanent theatre was needed.
• “The famous theatre of Dionysus in Athens
was begun about 500 B.C.”
It was built at the foot of the Acropolis – center of Greek Culture and near the
Current temple of Dionysus.
The orchestra
• This is also called the dancing floor.
• In it, the chorus (you will meet them in the
book), a group of 10-15 people, sang and
danced.
• In the center of the orchestra, there is an altar
to the god where a flute player stood.
Strophe /Anti-Strophe
• This is the chorus moving across the stage as
they establish the plot.
• Strophe means they are going from right to
left
• Anti- Strophe is they are going from left to
Right.
• Listen to what they say! They are laying the
ground work for the action.
Seating
• It was like a large half of a football stadium.
• The people sat in tiers around the stage.
• They were built into hillsides, so one seat was
above another.
Magical Acoustic Properties
• Even a matchstick dropping on stage could be
heard by all 20,000 viewers.
• All Greek people went to the theatre – the
Greek state paid for poor people to attend.
• The sound was a problem for one Greek
theatre in a wooded setting. All the audience
could hear were crickets who were on the
stage and chirping.
The Plays and players
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Actors wore platform shoes to appear taller.
Only males acted, no females.
The Chorus wore colorful, draped costumes.
Broad gestures to emphasize speeches.
Facial masks were used to indicate strong
emotion.
Conventions
• Ekklyklema: a wheeled platform that was
thrust onstage. Usually, as most action
happened offstage, it would be rolled onstage
with the corpses of characters who had just
been killed.
• Deus ex machina: the god from the machine.
A crane which allowed characters to fly above
the house and which usually provided striking
entrances for the god.
Euripides
• He was born about 484 BCE – the darkest and
most disturbing of the Greek Playwrights.
• Fascinated by the oppressed
• He depicts real men with all too human
weaknesses.
• He was the unwanted voice of conscience for
the injustices and hypocrisy of Athens.
A match made in heaven
• Medea was a barbarian, from the far edge of
the Black Sea. A powerful sorceress, princess
of Colchis and Granddaughter of the sun god
Helias.
• Jason was a great Greek hero and captain of
the Argonauts.
Greeks
• Learning from others’ mistakes is an important
part of Greek tragedy.
Before this play begins…
• Jason was in search of The Golden Fleece, which was
in the possession of Medea’s father.
• Medea’s father set up challenges for Jason to
perform in order to earn the fleece. Of course, they
were near to impossible for a mortal to perform.
• Medea fell in love with him and helped him, even to
the point of killing her own brother to help him
escape.
• Therefore, she has no home.
So, they’re a couple…
• Unfortunately, after many years and two
sons, Jason decides to forsake her and marry
another woman.
• Could be love, could be that her daddy is King
of Athens.
• Medea is too powerful to accept being thrown
over in this way, although she has little
outward power because she is a woman.
TOPICS!
• Revenge. Medea sacrifices all, even her own
peace of mind, to get revenge on Jason.
Medea’s situation is a paradigm for anyone
who feels slighted by someone or thing that is
institutionally protected and unfair.
PASSION AND RAGE
• She had so much passion for Jason she gave
up everything for him. Now that he has
betrayed her, her rage is boundless.
• Medea is an example of passion carried too
far in a woman perversely set on choosing
rage over mercy and reason.
EXILE
• In the time of the Greeks, to be exiled was the
worst of punishments.
• Medea had become an exile from her own
land for Jason’s sake.
• Now she is being exiled again, from Jason and
the new land of Corinth.
The Position of Women
• Greek society was dependent on slave labor
and the oppression of women.
• Medea is a product of these injustices, a real
woman twisted by her suffering.
• This play shows the war of the sexes where
everyone comes out scarred.
Manipulation
• Jason manipulated Medea to help him win the
Golden Fleece.
• Jason is manipulating the royal family of
Corinth to secure his own ends.
• But Medea is the master. She plays everyone
perfectly to exact her revenge.