Medea

First performed in 431 BC, Medea is a powerful study of society’s treatment of an outsider. Scorned and isolated, a barbarian priestess is betrayed by her husband in a hierarchal society where only men have a voice.

In Theatre VCU’s production, actress Mary Vreeland plays Medea, communicating only in American Sign Language (ASL). Within this unusual presentation, Director Heather Davies plumbs a timeless theme: how much effort will a dominant society extend to communicate with this unique/foreign woman. Medea is an exploration of the spirit, a portrait of the desire to connect and achieve cultural bilingualism, and how choices are made to form or not form a relationship with “the other.”