ABSTRACT
Medea, an Eastern princess who the Greeks consider to be a barbarian outsider, betrayed her father and homeland by sacrificing everything in order to save the life of Jason and to help win him the fabled golden fleece. Returning to Greece as Jasons wife and mother of their two children, she is spumed by him as he ambitiously and openly pursues a marriage with Creons daughter and the wealth and standing it will bring him. Medea has good cause to feel the way she does. She is spurned by Jason for purely technical reasons: by marrying a Greek princess the citizenship of his two children will become legal. The actor must remember that Medea is an exotic character, an alien force among the so-called civilised Greeks. She has much in common with Shakespeares Lady Macbeth in her ability to plot murder. Her speech is almost an aria of fury which she delivers in heightened but controlled rage.
