When was Medea by Euripides first performed?
Medea was first performed in 431 BC at the City Dionysia festival in Athens. It was part of a tetralogy that also included Philoctetes, Dictys, and the satyr play Theristai.
Questions about Medea (play)
Short answers, pulled from the story.
What place did Euripides win at the City Dionysia with Medea?
Euripides won third place, and last, in the 431 BC City Dionysia competition. Euphorion, son of Aeschylus, won first prize, while Sophocles came second.
Did Euripides invent the idea of Medea killing her own children?
Euripides appears to have invented the filicide. A scholium to line 264 of the play indicates that in earlier tradition, Medea's children were killed by the Corinthians after her escape, not by Medea herself. Euripides's version became the standard for later writers.
What makes Medea by Euripides unique among Greek tragedies?
Medea is the only Greek tragedy in which a kin-killer escapes without punishment, and the only tragedy about child-killing in which the deed is carried out in cold blood rather than in a state of temporary madness. The play's simple staging, typically featuring Medea, one other character, and the Chorus, also distinguishes it from many other tragedies.
How has Medea been interpreted in feminist readings?
Feminist readings have approached the play as either a sympathetic exploration of the disadvantages facing women in a patriarchal society or as an expression of misogynist attitudes. Classics scholar Fiona Macintosh described Medea as a figure who has been recast as both an exemplary wife and mother and as a proto-feminist wronged by a treacherous husband, depending on the cultural and political context of the production.
Which Broadway production of Medea has won the most Tony Awards?
The Jeffers adaptation of Medea holds the American Theatre Wing's Tony Award record for the most wins for the same female lead character in a play. Judith Anderson won at the 2nd Tony Awards on the 28th of March 1948, Zoe Caldwell won for a 1982 production at the Cort Theatre, and Diana Rigg won in 1994.