The Second in the Greek Shards Series

TRTC's Original and Freely Adapted Production
from the Jason, Argonauts and Golden Fleece Myth and Euripides' Play

Greek Shards - Medea

From Lon Winston, Artistic Director...


“In our grief and our anger, we have found our mission.”
- Pres. George W. Bush
Right or wrong, good or bad, it is clear that throughout history, emotions rule reason and greed consumes generosity. These are the themes that drive the Medea myth, which have been around for 4,000 years and long before Euripides’ play Medea. Euripides will always be admired, “not only for brilliance but for understanding, the understanding of heart and mind, unbiased, unprejudiced.”

Greek Shards - Medea is the second in a series of TRTC’s freely adapted ancient Greek myths. It is part of TRTC’s aesthetic value not to just take a script off the shelf and perform it. As performers along the continuum of those persons who create theatre rituals, we needed to create a new “theatrical” language to be able to tell the Medean myth and make it relevant for today. The great Greek myths are profound in their understanding of human nature, which is why the playwrights of the Golden Age of Greece retold the stories at every opportunity. In our telling of the story, we take pieces of the extant literature, create rituals around them, and from there develop our Greek Shards concept. Thornton Wilder once said, “Theatre merely recalls things to (the audience) that lay sleeping just below the level of consciousness." In our search for this new ritual language, we delve deeply into the fundamental workings of the characters and the machinations of the plot. It is in this search that we discover the revolving door to our communal dialogue with our audience. By creating theatre rituals rooted in the stories of Jason, the Argonauts, the Golden Fleece and the vengeance of Medea, TRTC continues the legacy of the theatre spectacle as a mirror of the human race.

The Ensemble
Valerie Haugen (Medea) Richard Lyon Kelley Mauldin Michael Miller Linda White


















































Lon Winston, Artistic Director
Thunder River Theatre Company

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