Aristotle, in his Poetics, writes that a good piece of theater should instill some kind of emotion in its audience, a feeling of hope and catharsis.  The audience should feel fear and pity right along with the characters without having to feel it in their own lives after the play has ended.  If a piece of drama is executed effectively it does just thisÖ it draws the audience in and makes it feel right along with the characters and, in turn, while separating themselves from these characters in the end, the audience is prompted to reflect on their own lives.  The Greek tragedy, Medea, perhaps one of the best examples of this installation of feeling and reflection, is currently playing at Chamber Theater of Milwaukee.
 
    Medea dates back over two millennia, and was written by Euripides, who has been branded ìthe philosopher of the stage.î  Medea is the story of a woman who has lost the love of her life, Jason, to another woman.  It takes us through her intense griefó a grief that overcomes her and pushes her to ruin Jason, killing his new wife, her father, the king, and in the end even her own two sons, for her hatred for Jason grows to eventually overpower even her love for her own two children.
 
    In her creation of Medea, actress Angela Iannone, of the Chamber Theater, presents a strong and powerful woman, taking us through her own clear process of the grief by which she is eventually overcome. Iannone effectively uses her body to express the passion that drives her version of Medea. Her movements onstage convey her love, hatred, sexual tension, confusion and grief.  This Medea differs significantly from the one embodied by Fiona Shaw, who presently creates the role in Londonís theater district.  Shaw plays Medea as a woman overcome by insanity. She is worn out and unenergetic from the beginning of the show.

    A critic once commented, ìThe tragedy of Medea-of love turning to hatred when betrayed, until the womanís soul is dominated by a lust for vengeance that overpowers even maternal love is one which no modern reader should in its essentials find difficult to make his own.î  The truth of this statement is what makes the story of Medea so powerful and virtually so effective in moving its
audience as Aristotle claims that it should.

    Despite the age of this play it still has the ability to capture the audience because of... lost love, passion despair ...and loss.

    I have seen Medea performed three times, and with each time I begin to understand these feelings and the root of them even more.  Regardless of the different interpretations, or the variance of acting styles, one thing remains: the feeling that I get when watching.  Despite the age of this play, it still has the ability to capture the audience because of the timelessness of its themesÖthat of lost love, passion, despair, desperation, and loss. The audience is clearly able to identify with these on many different levels.  When we see Medeaís tears, we remember our own when we suffered from our first heartbreak.  When we see her passion, as Iannone clearly conveyed, we feel our own passions in life as well. We hurt with Medea when that passion betrays her.  We think of our own vengeful thoughts in moments of our despair, and we remember our feelings when we have lost a loved one, maybe a grandparent or parent, maybe a lover, and we mourn with her. The betrayal that Medea feels is something we have all felt, maybe from a lover, maybe as a young child the first time our best friend revealed a secret of ours.  At times, deep inside, we too have experienced vengeful thoughts.  Most of us choose not to execute these hateful thoughtsÖbut they are there, and Medea executes them for usÖand we hate her for it and deep down we love her for it.  She does what we all, in our weakest moments, wish so badly that we could do.  She takes our hurt and our pain and she does something with it.

    Although Medea invokes so much intense emotion, the exact theme of the show is not quite clear.  Many plays have a concrete theme, but Medea makes the audience think and reflect and dig deep to understand why it leaves it feeling like it doesÖand that is why it is so amazing.  You love her for her strength and hate her for the way she uses that strength.  You thank God you have not let your passions overcome you, but acknowledge how worn out you are for repressing them deep inside of you.  You are heartbroken at the fact that she could kill her own children, and yet in a weird way you hate yourself for understanding.  You are glad she does not die in the end, because in a strange way you are this MedeaÖwhen you hurt and face betrayal and in your own moments of insanity. The difference however, between ourselves, and Medea, are the choices we will make in the end.  If hope can be felt at the end of this tragedy I think it comes from the fact that although we can all identify with her, we are not Medea.  We would never make the choices that she makes.  We will hurt, we will cry, we will even think vengeful thoughts, but we walk away from Medea knowing that we are better than what we have just witnessed.  We will be able to cope with the hurt that this play ignites inside of each of us for whatever reason, and I think in a way, as we leave the theater, we experience our own sense of strength, quite different from the strength that Medea uses in this ancient tragedyÖand we are able to move on.