Adapter and Director Dhyan Ruparel tells us about the vision behind his new version of Medea, arriving at the ADC Theatre from 5-9th May, including the unique changes he has made to Euripides’ classic Greek tragedy.
Why did you choose to stage Medea?
I first worked on this play when I was 15, as a stage manager. Getting to observe this story each night, I quickly understood why it stands out in the Western canon, receiving frequent productions many centuries after its original performance. The play encapsulates so much of what makes tragedy, and theatre, brilliant: Euripides’ writing captures life at its most extreme, with great philosophical depth and scope, and yet it also feels unwaveringly real. To watch Medea is to experience the whole spectrum of human emotions; to be morally challenged; to be invited to empathise, and to reason where reason seems impossible. But then it is also to spend time with characters whose words, movements and lives feel - sometimes unbearably - close to our own. There is no provocation quite like Medea for a director; as the descendant of immigrants, and as a director who is interested in the interplay between the political and the personal, I wanted to craft a version of the play that answered to the changing, exclusionary world of today, just as Euripides’ original must have in 431 BC.
Why did you choose to feature an all-BAME cast and BAME-led company?
Our original pitch was a continuation of the ‘BME Marlowe’ shows, which started in 2019 with a staging of Romeo and Juliet, and continued in recent years at the ADC. Medea felt like a play that would really benefit from this treatment: I had always been particularly attracted to its ideas of displacement, exile, and what it means to be ‘foreign,’ which felt pertinent to my British-Indian identity. To stage these ideas today, against a context of emerging facism and anti-immigration rhetoric in global politics, demanded a staging that dealt with contemporary issues of race. Working with BAME artists has heightened the realism and intensity of this production, as well as creating space for their voices and talents within Cambridge student theatre. It is unfortunate that the company still connects over the issues raised in this play, and yet it also answers why a staging like this feels urgent and significant. I’ve loved working with this team, and can’t wait for our audiences to experience their passion and energy.
Why did you choose to write your own adaptation?
This was a difficult decision: so many excellent versions exist of this play, including contemporary translations by Rachel Cusk, Ben Power, Mike Bartlett and many others. Yet, to stage a version that addressed the here and now, I felt that the text itself needed to sit with my specific vision, foregrounding the ideas of exile that I wanted to address, as well as the placeless and timeless setting that I have adopted. This version works from the roots of Euripides’ writing, via E.P. Coleridge and others, intervening only to shape and highlight sections that are more or less relevant to today. Multilingualism is one of these interventions, with the Chorus speaking multiple languages to reflect their personal experiences of displacement and therefore explain their connection to Medea. Others include a new framing device, also involving the Chorus, and alterations to the structure that allow the play to run more naturalistically in real time.
Medea
by Euripides, adapted by Dhyan Ruparel
Tue 05 - Sat 09 May, 7.45PM
Thu 07 & Sat 09 May, 1.30/2.30PM
ADC Theatre
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