Medea: Euripides and Liz Lochhead
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Medea: Euripides and Liz Lochhead
Liz Lochhead is an award winning poet, author, and playwright. The Scottish writer often focuses on the empowerment of women, Medea being one of her lesser-known adaptations. This adaptation was later performed at the fringe festival in edinborough. It was later taken on tour throughout Europe, India, and Canada. Although Lochhead stays true to the plot, Her translation takes a feminist approach, building up Medea more as a hero, than a villain. She makes Medea relatable, as opposed to the focus of Medea being an evil sorceress in Euripides version. Lochhead puts a fresh new spin on Medea, making it easier for the audience to understand, and translates a lot of the original text into Scottish vernacular. Liz Lochheads version of Medea is often considered as to having a strong feminist twist.
Lochheads adaptation of Medea follows the original plot written by Euripides, while empowering Medea as a strong woman, all while making the audience more sympathetic towards her. Lochheads changes are in the small details of the story, making sure there is constant tension building between the men and the women. Medea is a play about a womans plight, suffering, and revenge. Euripides focuses on the fact that Medea is a selfish and irrational witch who makes the ruthless decision of killing her children and husband. Lochheads version takes a more understanding tone. In the adaptation, Jason is marrying Glauce primarily to make the childrens material lives better, whereas in the original, Jason is doing it to better his stance in the city, and possibly become king. One of the biggest changes that Lochhead made was the fact that Medea was so close to forgiving Jason until Glauce visited her. Medea was human, and driven mad by passionate love. Upon seeing Glauces happiness Medea became jealous. The turning point was when Glauce did not recognize Medea as attractive or see her as a suitable wife. Fueled by the stupidity of Glauce, Medea then sets out to follow the plans Euripides wrote for her. Lochhead changes a lot of the script, making classical words more modern, and therefore easier to understand. Medea is portrayed as a more human like charachter, playing into emotions we have all felt before.
Liz Lochhead, Winner of the Saltire Societys award for SCOTTISH BOOK OF THE YEAR 2001, is most famous for her focus on female empowerment. I think Lochheads central idea was to make Medea a more likeable charachter. In the Euripides play, it is easy to pinpoint Medea as the bad guy; she kills her children, ex- husband, king, and daughter of the king. She felt no remorse, and leaves the play riding away on her chariot, with the bodies of her two children, leaving nothing and no one behind. She is a witch, and an evil sorceress. It was easy to make Medea a bad person, and I think Lochhead wanted to change everyones view about her. In the preface of her translation, she noted that while doing the translation, she was also in the process of writing “a comedy about a woman desperate to give birth to a child. I think that she was simply interested in doing opposing pieces for variety. Lochheads work often focuses on women and their plight, whether is motherhood, girlhood, and females coming of age, women often play strong, vital, roles in all of her works. Here Lochhead sees Medea as a woman stricken by grief and passion, and is almost sympathetic towards Medea. It is understandable why she would take on the adaptation of Medea, because her writings often focus on women empowerment and feminism.
Lochheads adaptations only slightly altered the tone of the play, making Medea a character one the audience would be better able to empathize with. Medeas actions were driven by two things, passion and fate. She was madly in love with Jason, wanting nothing more than to be with him. Many people in the audience have been in love, and know what its like to make irrational decisions under the power of lust. Medea also brings up the idea of fate, as the oracle has prophesized Medea to do all the things she said. Medea cannot help that her fate is to do those horrible things. It has been shown in countless classic plays, that no matter how hard a character tries to change their fate, it wont do any good. Medea has been an outcast from the start, and Lochhead uses her feelings of being an outcast to her advantage, emphasizing how alone and different she is from everyone else. This feeling of aloneness also helps drive her to insanity, and makes her capable of killing all those people. Lochheads Medea has Medea speaking in an English accent, whereas everyone else speaks with a Scottish one. This helps develop Medea as an outcast. The chorus all wear similar hairstyles and dress, further alienating Medea and separating her even more from society. In the translation, she addresses the chorus saying, “no one loves a foreigner, everyone despises anyone the least bit different, see how she ties her scarf, you walked by my house with eyes averted, turned up your nose at my households cooking smells.”. She is more likeable to