Médée ・ Comédie-Française

With his "Medea", Euripides was the first dramatist to make this character the murderer of her own children.

Medea, the daughter of King of Colchis and an Oceanid, uses herpowers to help Jason, with whom she has fallen in love, to capture the GoldenFleece. However Jason abandons the woman who sacrificed her brother and fatherfor him in order to marry the daughter of Creon, king of Corinth, where theyhave found refuge. Medea’s then vows to destroy her own house and her threathangs over the whole play. She uses the day Creon gives her before exiling herto carry out her fateful revenge. She poisons the princess and the king, takesthe lives of her own children and flies away on a winged chariot to the kingdomof Aegeus. By focusing his drama on this powerful female character who killswithout the intervention of the gods, Euripides created an infanticide that hashaunted the history of Western art to this day.

A product of the P.U.L.S. scheme (a four-year programme designedto lead young artists to create projects for big stages) created at theToneelhuis in Antwerp by Guy Cassiers, Lisaboa Houbrechts has collaborated withthe choreographer Alain Platel and the director Ivo van Hove and is due to bringher production of Bruegel to France in June 2022, to the Grande Halle deLa Villette, as well as Pépé Chat ou Comment Dieu a disparu to the MC93 inMarch 2023. From this ancient text – which entered the Repertoire in 1981 and hasnever been performed since – she offers a free adaptation in which Medea defiesthe authority of a feminised Jason. The Flemish author and director develops atheatre of the body and metaphors, translating the texts into a language thatborrows from music and the visual arts, the intimate and the monumental. Byabandoning the chronology of the myth in favour of an inner time, she engages areflection on Medea, the woman goddess, victim and murderer, a woman whotransgresses the law, a woman who kills the mother within her, who freesherself from her earthly bonds and transfigures human pain.

with the generous support of Aline Foriel-Destezet, great ambassador of artistic creation
and with the support of the Fondation pour la Comédie-Française

New production

Creative team

Adapted and directed by: Lisaboa Houbrechts
Dramaturgy: Simon Hatab
Scenography: Clémence Bezat
Costumes: Anna Rizza
Lights: Fabiana Piccioli
Original music: Niels Van Heertum
Chants: Jérôme Bertier
Sounds: Jeroen Kenens
Choregraphic work : Tijen Lawton
Makeup: Céline Regnard
Direction assistant: Céline Gaudier
Scenography assistant: Nina Coulais de l’académie de la Comédie-Française
Costumes assistant : Clément Desoutter de l’académie de la Comédie-Française

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