Medea of the Laundromat

Tony-award nominee John-Andrew Morrison (A Strange Loop) takes on the title role of Medea in this rare revival of H.M. Koutoukas’ Medea of the Laundromat, an ancient Greek tragedy set in a laundromat that unfolds in a 1960s coffeehouse. This seminal work by the “Godfather of Off-Off-Broadway” is directed by Arthur Adair.

With a wildly surreal style of drama, H. M. Koutoukas (1937–2010) was a prolific playwright who wrote outrageously stylized characters, equipped them with arch dialogue and set them loose in outlandish situations. He obeyed no rules but those that one of his characters called “the ancient laws of glitter.” He produced at a furious rate, turning out three plays a year in the 1960s and 1970s. Many were presented on less than a shoestring at La MaMa and the Caffe Cino. Props and flats were scavenged from the street. Often the actors were, too.

“H.M. (Harry) Koutoukas was a Christopher Street legend,” remarked Harvey Fierstein in his 2022 memoir, I Was Better Last Night. “Pulling inspiration from the same catalog of Technicolor movies as filmmaker Jack Smith while adding a level of the Oscar Wilde aesthete, Harry created ebullient scripts that always began, ‘As the curtain rises…’ Sadly none of the Off-Off-Broadway venues producing his stuff ever had a curtain.”

Joining John-Andrew Morrison in this revelatory production is Jason Howard and Jenne Vath, fellow members of The Experimentals, a performance group that was founded by La MaMa Resident Director, the late George Ferencz (1947-2021), in 1999.

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