Medea: The Trash TV Show by Ed Helenski

Medea: The Trash TV Show Reviews

• 
  Phillip

  This is a very funny adaptation of a tragedy, which takes the Medea story from Euripides and filters it through the medium of a daytime talk show. The various characters are interviewed, they debate, the accuse, they defend their actions.
  
  There are a couple of shortcomings with this play. First, the characters names are allegorical in ways I personally don't find particularly effective. For instance, the show's host is named Gladdabe Urhost, and the sociologist who works on children's suffering during parental conflict is Val E. Dation. I can see how this can be cute. But it doesn't work for me. Second, there isn't much action in this play. The talk show format essentially guarantees that the majority of the time we have people narrating rather than doing things. And third, there is a very odd disconnect with the Greek gods, who at one point are discussed as Medea's evil-witch gods that apparently Corinthians don't understand, but at other times are evoked by the Corinthians themselves.