During the first two decades of the twenty-first century, Australian audiences encountered Greek tragedy in mainstage theatres in domesticated adaptations more than in any other format. Medea was a popular source text, whether in Wesley Enoch's adaptation, which collides Euripides' and Seneca's material with a narrative about intergenerational cycles of violence in Indigenous Australian communities, or Kate Mulvany and Anne-Louise Sarks' pressure cooker of a play, where audiences watch the last hour of Medea's children's lives play out in real time. This episode explores a new Australian adaptation of Medea which explodes the myth out in the opposite direction, towards the epic rather than the domestic. Co-created by Australian playwright Tom Holloway and classicist Emma Cole, Medea in Exile is a trilogy of plays about Medea, built from lost and forgotten narratives from antiquity preserved in tragic fragments, quotations from ancient mythographers, and material evidence. Join us as we journey through the history of Australian adaptations of Greek tragedy in the twenty-first century, where we touch upon Tom's prior works Don't Say The Words (from Aeschylus' Agamemnon) and Love Me Tender (from Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis), and consider the enduring appeal of using theatre to explore grief and to purge or cleanse us of our emotions.

This episode is produced in partnership with the Assemblage Centre for Creative Practice Research at Flinders University and is guest hosted by Professor Chris Hay, Director of Assemblage.