Medea: a new version - Tapa blanda

Medea's revenge upon Jason takes place on "one sweet, vicious, vengeful, devastating day", and the vigour of Brendan Kennelly's translation can be gauged from those mouthwatering words. He has a superb feel for the language * The Times * Accessible, immediate, urgent...his language makes you feel the force of Medea's passions as closely and vividly as Euripides' audiences would have done. * The Guardian * He has created a modern Medea with classical touches who epitomises contemporary woman as much as a mythical heroine. * Evening Press (Dublin) *

Brendan Kennelly has turned this classic tale of betrayal and vengeance into a text for our times. The sorceress Medea marries Jason after helping him and the Argonauts steal the Golden Fleece. When Jason deserts her, she punishes her faithless husband by murdering their two sons, after killing his young bride and her father with a robe of fire. Medea carries out her bloody revenge in the name of Justice, but in the spirit of rage. The rage of many modern women, including Irishwomen, electrifies this highly charged and deeply personal play. First staged at the Dublin Theatre Festival, Kennelly's chilling new version of Euripides' great tragedy has delighted and devastated audiences in Ireland, Britain and America. This edition is now out of print but is reprinted in Kennelly's Greek plays trilogy, When Then Is Now.