Hell Hath No Fury like a Woman Scorned in 'Seneca's Medea'

If the love of your life and father of your children abandoned you for a younger woman, what would you do? And what if you had magical forces at your disposal? You might or might not go as far as Medea, the passionate antihero of the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club’s production of “Seneca’s Medea,” running from Nov. 20 to Nov. 23.

The play takes place after the events of “Jason and the Argonauts.”  In the preceding story, the Greek hero Jason escapes from Colchis with the help of the sorceress Medea. After being married to her for several years, though, Jason decides to reject Medea in favor of Creusa, the daughter of Creon and the princess of Corinth. Thus begins “Seneca’s Medea,” chronicling the day before the wedding as Medea tries to decide whether or not to take revenge.

Medea is not a completely sympathetic figure, but the longevity of the play evidences her power as a character. Though extreme, Medea’s descent into madness and fluctuation between love and hatred speak to universal emotions. “It’s somehow ageless,” Juliette Cremel ’17, who plays Medea, says. “She has a lot of sides that all of us have in ourselves, even if most of us obviously don’t take it that far.”

There are two versions of “Medea”—Euripedes’s original play and Seneca’s later adaptation, which this production chooses to use. According to the cast, while the original play concentrates on plot and drama, Seneca’s version pays more attention to inner motivations and feelings. “This ‘Medea’ is a lot more psychological,” actor Eli B. Schleicher ’17, who plays Jason, says. “It focuses less on the violence—Medea’s a very violent character—and more on the mental games she plays with people.”

Seneca’s version also features beautifully poetic speeches, largely because it was originally designed to be recited rather than acted out. Preserving the lush language become the job of the Harvard Classics Club, who did the translation themselves. “It’s exciting to do a student translation,” Schleicher says. “Straight translation…keeps to what has been written technically, but there is still a lot that can be done with word choice.”

One such innovative choice, a decision of director Veronica S. Wickline ’16, was to retain some of the original Latin alongside the English translations. “There was something about the solemnity of the Latin that captured what a very long poetic piece was trying to say,” Wickline says.

And the cast insists that viewers should not be deterred by the play’s classical nature. “A lot of our work has gone into making it accessible,” Schleicher says. “And making it exciting, making it emotional.” Besides, the play features both hyperbolic insanity and an original composition for the Irish pennywhistle. What’s not to like?