Medea of the Laundromat

A rare revival of H.M. Koutoukas’s Medea of the Laundromat, a seminal work of theatre from 1965. Directed by Arthur Adair, Medea of the Laundromat and, more broadly, the work of H.M. Koutoukas gave birth to the off-off-Broadway theater movement and established “camp” as an enduring genre. Medea of the Laundromat is an ancient Greek tragedy set in a laundromat that unfolds in a 1960s coffeehouse. This “ritualistic camp” premiered in 1965 at Café La MaMa before moving on to Caffe Cino & Theatre Genesis. The Village Voice referred to the production as so “eccentric as to be nearly unthinkable. The play is an enactment of the final terrible scene when Medea murders her child… Medea is the very heroine of old—fanatical, hideous, wronged, ecstatically suffering. But the action is set in a laundromat.” The following year, H.M. Koutoukas received an Obie Award for “Assaulting Established Tradition.”