Seongbukdong Beedoolkee Theatre’s MEDEA on Media, monstrous media, which we relish in our daily life, are depicted as the ultimate cause of the Medea’s tragedy. It breaks down the boundary between reality and fictional world through recurring images and sound, thereby providing a pretext for distorted judgment and choices. The performance follows Medea footstep drawing near to the murder and focuses on the influence that today’s media could have on us. Each scene adopts different styles of various channels and is performed in front of the audience as if the audience are sitting in the studio set of TV programs. Like in the original text, Medea betrays her family to follow her husband Jason. But when he abandons her for Creusa, the daughter of Creon, Medea decides to avenge.

Each of the scenes in MEDEA on Media adopts different TV programs that are very much familiar to us. The fight between Jason and Medea happens on a television talk show; the scene where Creon banishes Medea turns into a melodrama; the nurse’s lamentation takes the form of a documentary; Aegeus’ promise of sanctuary borrows pleasure of an adult channel. Fast moving scenes, loud noises and recurring sensational images cause empty laughter, which numb the audience of the murder on stage. Like the chorus behind the veil of anonymity, the audience sit back and watch the scenes of violence, without any guilt or grief.