In 431 BC, the Greek playwright Euripides premiered his latest play, Medea.  The story of a woman scorned who deals with her anger by murdering her ex-husband’s soon-to-be wife, future father-in-law, and finally her own children, Medea has lived on as one of Euripides’s most-performed plays.  Three actresses have won Tony awards for playing Medea on Broadway, setting the record for the most Tonys won for playing the same role.

Medea is a play that is open to a lot of interpretations.  Quite a few stagings of the play present Medea as being a sympathetic character, a victim of a misogynistic culture who was driven to extremes by the men around her.  I can see that argument and it is true that the play does emphasize that all the men in Medea’s life treat her terribly.  Creon plots to send Medea into exile so that his daughter can marry her husband.  Medea’s smarmy husband, Jason, says that he has no choice but to marry a princess because Medea is only a “barbarian,” fit to be his mistress but not his wife.  In many ways, Medea is a sympathetic character.  But, for me, all of that sympathy goes out the window as soon as she murders her children.  The fact that, in most stage versions of the play, the Gods then help her to escape makes her even less sympathetic in my eyes.  (Needless to say, it certainly doesn’t do much for the reputation of the Greek Gods.  Then again, one gets the feeling that even the ancient Gods didn’t particularly like their Gods.)

In 1983, Zoe Caldwell won a Tony for playing Medea.  (Interestingly enough, in this production, the Nurse was played by Judith Anderson, who also won a Tony for playing Medea, in 1947.)  A performance at the Kennedy Center was filmed for PBS.  The production, with its minimalist sets and atmosphere of growing dread, captures the nightmarish intensity of the story.  Zoe Caldwell gives a riveting performance as Medea, alternating between wild-eyed madness and subtle manipulation.

As the most horrific of the Greek plays, Medea is a production that just feels right for the Halloween season.  Here is Zoe Caldwell in 1983’s Medea.