SLU mixes the ancient and the modern in Medea

• By JUDY BERGERON
• Advocate News Features staff
• Published: Apr 13, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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In 431 B.C., when Euripides’ Medea was first performed by the ancient Greeks, a drummer and a flute player probably provided the music.

In 2008, enter the rock band The Chi Chis. The young members of the area group are the musicians for Southeastern Louisiana University Theatre Department’s production of Medea, which runs this week in the Vonnie Borden Theatre on the Hammond campus.

“They took all the chorus passages from the ancient Greek play and turned them into original songs that they composed and wrote lyrics for,” Jim Winter, the play’s director said. Winter is an instructor of acting and directing at SLU.

The story which will unfold along with this music is a tragic one of jealousy and revenge. The epic hero Jason, years after the adventures of the Golden Fleece, has brought his wife, Medea, to Corinth. He then proceeds to leave her in order to take another wife, Glauce, the daughter of King Creon. In a fit of rage, Medea kills Jason’s future bride, his future father-in-law, and her own two sons.

In Medea’s ancient version, the musicians would have appeared on stage for the production, and at SLU, they’ll be on stage, in full costume, and masks.

“Everyone will be wearing a mask,” Winter said. “This was another convention of the ancient Greeks, but rather than wearing the style of mask we think they would have worn, I contacted mask makers in New Orleans, at the shop Masquerade in the French Quarter. They custom-designed the 20-something masks for the production.”

Winter said the leather masks are half-masks, covering the actor’s faces from the nose up. The styles vary depending on the character.

“They’re quite beautiful,” he said.

There are also two special characters in the show who represent the class of slaves in ancient Greece. Cast member Megan Haley built these two masks, and they’re stylistically quite different from the rest.

“Still beautiful none the less,” Winter said.

The play itself is quite an ambitious undertaking, particularly for the SLU program, the director said.

A chorus in ancient Greece would have trained for about 11 months on their own; in this version, they’ve trained about three months, including working on their own specific choreography. The band, too, practiced separately. Now, the pieces of the production puzzle are being put together.

Challenges have been tackling more elaborate special effects than in past shows and the somewhat lyrical Greek text.