Medea/Mothers' Clothes first took place at Bluecoat Arts Centre,
Liverpool on 30/04 and 01/05/2004
Since then it was presented at
emergency platform, green room, Manchester 01/10/2004;
Brunel University, West London 22/10/2004;
Teatro Guinol, Santa Clara, Cuba 16/01/2005;
Feminist Critical Seminar on 'Citizenship and Be/longing', Inter-University Centre, Dubrovnik, Croatia 27/05/2005;
Performance Art Carlisle Event, Source Café, Carlisle, 07/02/2006;
John Thaw Studio Theatre, Manchester University, Manchester, 10/05/2006; Interdisciplinary Conference ‘Medea: Mutations and Permutations of a Myth’, Bristol University, Bristol 18/07/2006;
On the Edge, University of Hull @ Scarborough 19/10/2006.
University of Winchester 22/02/2007
Live Artist: Lena Simic
Graphic and Set Design: Ben Cain and Tina Gverovic
Audio Visual Support: Ross Dalziel
Costume Design: Tina Gverovic, Ana Piplica and Ben Cain
Web: Ben Cain, Sonja Stahor and Berislav Vranesic
Supported by
Bluecoat Arts Centre
Arts Council England
Acknowledgments
By permission of Penguin Books Ltd. Medea text (approximately 80 lines) used in performance is from: Euripides Medea and Other Plays (translated by John Davie), Penguin Classics, London 1996.
Music used in performance:
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi Stabat Mater performed by The Academy of Ancient Music and conducted by Christopher Hogwood, London 1998 |
Action on stage
There is a large white screen in the background of the stage.
The video footage inspired by Medea monologues is projected onto it:
hanging the washing outside my block of flats, trying on mothers' clothes, playground, dead nature and leaves, toddler's group.
There is a washing line with Medea's costume and a white sheet hanging on it.
All the mothers' clothes are piled up on the floor.
I enter the stage carrying my children's bath. Full of water.
I wet the white sheet and hang it on the washing line.
The slide projector starts running (mothers' slides on the sheet).
I perform the banal action of washing mothers' clothes in my children's bath.
The clothes are hung on a washing line. The clothes are hanging, dripping.
Sound: dialogue with my husband around Ladies of Corinth monologue, toddler's group, calling upon Zeus, disclosure of Medea's plans to murder her children.
Stabat Mater occasionally supports the video footage.
Medea is prompted by a male's voice - writer/translator/Greek theatre actor.
I continue performing the banal action of washing mothers' clothes.
The slides finish.
I wet Medea's costume.
The video footage and sound finish.
I put on Medea's costume.
I leave
All is dripping wet.
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