Kirtana Kumar in Medea
| Picture Credit score: Particular Association
Euripides’ Medea, written within the fifth century BC, is primarily seen as a narrative of betrayal and vengeance. Love, magic, and fury collide on this timeless tragedy, which has stayed related for hundreds of years since its creation.
Jagriti Theatre in Bengaluru is producing a reinterpretation of this play, which options Rebecca Spurgeon as its director and Kirtana Kumar as its sole actor. This model of Medea confronts the depths of despair, the searing ache of betrayal, and the lengths a lady will go to guard her kids and herself. This isn’t a typical Medea, pushed solely by vengeance. This might be a Medea of our time, a mirrored image of numerous ladies all through historical past who’ve been pressured to the brink of worry, exile, and the determined want for security.
The play will witness the uncooked feelings of a mom on the sting, a lady grappling with the unthinkable. It asks these questions: Is she a monster able to unimaginable acts? Or is she a survivor, clinging to the final shreds of her humanity in a world that has stripped her of the whole lot?
However what prompted Rebecca to recreate this historic play?
“I’ve all the time returned to tales of this expertise of what it means to be a lady,” she says. “I feel lots about how ladies are represented in tales and the place that literature holds for them. At the same time as a younger literature pupil, I used to be fascinated with Medea. To create a efficiency piece with this character has all the time been on my bucket checklist.”
Rebecca additionally discovered the play’s themes of battle, exile, and statelessness nonetheless related. So, she began creating it with Kirtana in November 2022.
Rebecca and Kirtana needed to make Medea related to the native viewers however averted Indianising it.
“The play has undergone important modifying, primarily as a result of it initially featured a number of characters, and adapting it right into a solo efficiency required cautious consideration,” says Rebecca. Although she hasn’t explicitly contemporised the play, the viewers might be supplied refined clues in regards to the setting via staging and sound design.
“The main focus was on figuring out gestures that will resonate with an Indian viewers,” says Kirtana, “We needed to discover the potential of conveying that means via gestures, actions, costumes, and even sound, offering refined hints and clues to help the viewers in developing the narrative. We intentionally averted simplifications reminiscent of sporting a sure type of gown to indicate the interval of the story.”
This isn’t the primary time Kirtana, 57, is portraying Medea. She did it in her 30s. She says the experiences have been starkly totally different.
“Once I first portrayed Medea at 30, my interpretation was centered solely on anger. It portrayed pure indignation fueled by a way of injustice that demanded correction. Nevertheless, revisiting the position at 57 has introduced a richer spectrum of feelings. The efficiency now encompasses negotiation, emotional manipulation, and a profound sense of rejection that comes with getting old.
“In contrast to the sense of risk and potential at 30, the rejection at 57 signifies the closure of many alternatives. The narrowing prospects embody the realms of romance, love, the envisioning of a future, and the very essence of life itself.”
The 70-minute English play might be staged on February 2, 3, and 4 at Jagriti Theatre. Tickets on bookmyshow.com
