Medea: SexWar

Based on Medea: A Sex-War Opera by Tony Harrison

A ferocious, blood-sweating sex-war ritual exploring the creation of myth and the bastardisation of the character of Medea as a barbarian princess and infanticidal bitch.

Beneath all Greek mythology
are struggles between HE and SHE
that we're still waging.
In every quiet suburban wife
dissatisfied with married life
is MEDEA, raging!
Tony Harrison

Harrison's Medea looked at Euripides' story in which Medea kills her children in a passionate act of revenge. Harrison returned to original sources and found a different tale: far from being the murderess of her offspring, Medea was depicted in earlier myths as the fond parent of fourteen children who were killed by the Corinthians. Because plans for a performance of this alternative version of the myth at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York fell through, it had never been performed.

Volcano's version is a challenging conjunction of two radically different texts. It interweaves parts of the libretto and ideas of Medea with text from the SCUM Manifesto. This anarcho-feminist manifesto (written by Valerie Solanas - the woman now famous for shooting Andy Warhol) proposed a "Society for Cutting Up Men", a radical programme of feminist changes.

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"For all the sweat, shouting and slap of flesh on flesh this is impressively, carefully modulated stuff."
The Sunday Times