Comedy and tragedy

Directed by two Sixth Form students, Claire Harbourne and Lizzie Salmon, these two plays provided superb entertainment. A full review will appear here in due course.

Medea Cast

Lydia Bourhill as Medea

Joseph Shaw as Jason

Lauren Au as Nurse

Bowen Feng as Tutor

Mr David Smyth as Creon

Issa Patel as Messenger

Sam Brooker & Ben Hancock as Medea's sons

The Thesmophoriasuzae Cast

Nick Smith as Euripides

Robert Brocklehurst as Mnesilochus

Alasdair Humphries as Agathon

Issa Patel as Agathon's servant

Joseph Shaw as Cleisthenes

Jack McGuinness as the Magistrate

Nathan Wimlett as a Scythian constable

Lauren Au as Leader of the women's assembly

Helen Craig as First Woman

Hannah Armfield as Manya

Emily Tonge as Second Woman

Lizzie Salmon as Third Woman

Olivia McCrea-Hedley as Fourth Woman

Alex Booth as Posh Woman

Emily Tonge as Echo

Olivia McCrea-Hedley as Dancing girl

The Plays

Medea

The tragedy Medea, written by Euripides, was first performed at the Festival of Dionysus in Athens in 431BC. Jason, one of the Argonauts, has returned to Corinth from his quest to seek the Golden Fleece with his new wife, Medea, who had used her magic skills to help him kill the Hydra which guarded the Fleece. On their escape, she had forced the daughters of King Pelias to kill their father and had prevented her own father from following her by cutting up her brother's body and putting it into the sea for her father to pick piece by piece. In Corinth, they have-lived happily together, but now Jason has now left Medea and their sons to be married to the princess of Corinth whose father Creon is king. The play begins in front of Jason and Medea's house in Corinth.

Thesmophoriasuzae

The comedy Thesmophoriasuzae (or The Poet and the Women) was written by Aristophanes being performed at the Festival of Dionysus in Athens in 411BC. The Festival of the Thesmophoria was celebrated by the women of Athens every October on the Pnyx where normally the male assembly took place. Men were strictly forbidden from these celebrations and women could make proposals for the betterment of Athens there. The crux of the comedy comes in the proposal that Euripides (who wrote Medea et al.) had slandered women and should be punished. The machinations of Euripides to prevent him suffering this fate are the source of the physical and verbal comedy which makes the piece a cross between a Carry on film, Monty Python and Morecambe and Wise.

Posted by: I J Morton
Date: Friday 19/03/2010