Medea (play)

Medea
Clio-Danae Othoneou as Medea in Peter Stein's 2005 production at the Theatre at Epidaurus
Written by	Euripides
Chorus	Corinthian Women
Characters	Medea Nurse Tutor Aegeus Creon Jason Messenger
Mute	Medea's two children
Date premiered	431 BC
Place premiered	Athens
Original language	Ancient Greek
Genre	Tragedy
Setting	Before Medea's house in Corinth

Medea (Ancient Greek: Μήδεια, Mēdeia) is an ancient Greek tragedy written by Euripides, based upon the myth of Jason and Medea and first produced in 431 BC. The plot centers on the actions of Medea, a former princess of the "barbarian" kingdom of Colchis, and the wife of Jason; she finds her position in the Greek world threatened as Jason leaves her for a Greek princess of Corinth. Medea takes vengeance on Jason by killing Jason's new wife as well as her own children, after which she escapes to Athens to start a new life.

Considered shocking to Euripides' contemporaries, Medea and the suite of plays that it accompanied in the City Dionysia festival came last in the festival that year. Nonetheless the play remained part of the tragedic repertoire, and experienced renewed interest with the emergence of the feminist movement, because of its nuanced and sympathetic portrayal of Medea's struggle to take charge of her own life in a male-dominated world. The play has remained the most frequently performed Greek tragedy through the 20th century.

Medea was first performed in 431 BC at the City Dionysia festival. Here every year three playwrights competed against each other, each writing a tetralogy of three tragedies and a satyr play (alongside Medea were Philoctetes, Dictys and the satyr play Theristai). In 431 the competition was among Euphorion (the son of famed playwright Aeschylus), Sophocles (Euripides' main rival) and Euripides. Euphorion won, and Euripides placed last.

The form of the play differs from many other Greek tragedies by its simplicity: All scenes involve only two actors, Medea and someone else. These encounters serve to highlight Medea's skill and determination in manipulating powerful male figures to achieve her own ends. The play is also the only Greek tragedy in which a kin-killer makes it unpunished to the end of the play, and the only one about child-killing in which the deed is performed in cold blood as opposed to in a state of temporary madness.