Medea - by Catherine Theis (Paperback)

About the Book

Drama. Poetry. California Interest. Through a mix of sound-poems, dance, and traditional scenes, Catherine Theis attempts to jostle Medea from her traditional, male-defined narrative in this modern retelling set in the mountains of Montana. A 2015 Leslie Scalapino Award for Innovative Women Performance Writers finalist, MEDEA features a Chorus of Flames, choreography for The Milky Way, and a collection of palate-cleansing satyr plays to be performed after. Grappling with both love and language, Theis' MEDEA "wants to join with the world, to meld with it. Let's let her do that--see what falls away."

Book Synopsis

Through a mix of sound-poems, dance, and traditional scenes, Catherine Theis attempts to jostle Medea from her traditional, male-defined narrative in this modern retelling set in the mountains of Montana. A 2015 Leslie Scalapino Award for Innovative Women Performance Writers finalist, MEDEA features a Chorus of Flames, choreography for The Milky Way, and a collection of palate-cleansing satyr plays to be performed after. Grappling with both love and language, Theis' Medea "wants to join with the world, to meld with it. Let's let her do that--see what falls away."

Review Quotes

Catherine Theis' lyrical riff on the Medea myth locates Medea and cheating Husband sometime after the accidental poisoning of her children. In the mountains of Montana, the title character rises far beyond her prosaic husband with her bond to her sister, heaven, and earth. Woven with classical references, this Medea dances with the Milky Way and a Chorus of Flames to a compelling imagist beat. -- Diane Rayor, translator of Euripides' Medea (Cambridge, 2013)

Keeping all the themes--passion and betrayal, loyalty and revenge--intact, Theis transposes Medea and her comrades-in-tragedy into a vibrant lyricism in which sounds ricochet, layer, and multiply, casting language as the central character within and against the background of the myth's multi-millennial history. From the vividly impossible stage directions (An orange tree realigns its arm toward the sun) to her re-deployment of the satyr plays, Theis engages the ancient in ways that make us re-theatricalize our own present. Thanks to the immediacy of her writing, the page is the perfect stage for this play and its aftermaths. -- Cole Swensen, co-editor of American Hybrid: A Norton Anthology of New Poetry

Two visions of what translation should be: 'a performative gesture altering space' (Erín Moure); 'lebendig' (Hölderlin)-meaning it renders both source and reader living again. Catherine Theis' überlively version of Euripides' Medea fits both bills. Venturing to the very Shrub of Fate, with only stray Mars bars for sustenance, this Medea awakens us to all the old monstrosities-patriarchy, language, embodiment in time. It's as stylish as an Alfa Romeo, the perfect tonic to our Gold-Leaf Age. --- John Beer theatre critic & author of Lucinda

About the Author

Catherine Theis is a poet, translator, and scholar. Her translation of the Italian poet Jolanda Insana is forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press (2024). Theis is the author of MEDEA (Plays Inverse, 2017), an adaptation of the Euripides story, as well as The Fraud of Good Sleep (Salt Modern Poets, 2011). Her critical book, H.D.'s Dramatic Poetics is forthcoming from Dalkey Archive (2024). Theis has received various fellowships and awards, most notably from the Illinois Arts Council, Del Amo Foundation, Gold Family Foundation, and the Ugo Da Como Foundation. She teaches in the General Education program at USC.