Medea. Even if, like me, you've never seen or read the play, we all know the story of the mother who kills her children. Worst mother ever, right? But maybe, as they say on
Crazy Ex Girlfriend, the situation is a bit more nuanced than that. Maybe there's more to the story, maybe other people in the story see it differently. Playwright Michael Elyanow (see also the
beautiful play with music Lullaby) wanted to explore the story from the children's viewpoint. He writes in the playbill, "I started writing
The Children as a response play where somebody does take action to defend those kids. In the writing, the piece revealed itself to be a fever dream, a time-traveling mystery, a fish-out-of-water comedy, a theatrical event with a perception shift in every scene until we get at what the play is ultimately, singularly about: trauma survival." That's about as good of a description as I could imagine.
The Children is not an easy play to categorize, but it is a wonderful one to experience for 80 minutes. It'll challenge your perception of Medea, as well as your perception of time and space.
