Medea

I have just returned from watching my very first Greek tragedy - Medea by Euripides (now spectacularly staged at The National Theatre). It is a story of the most horrific of crimes. That of a mother killing her own two children. Had I known what it was about, I would not have watched it but having watched it, I am unable to shake off the extraordinary derangement of energy of the titular character. Her raging outburst and her deeply wounded sentiments that propel her to kill her kids in an attempt to get back at her husband who has left her for another woman. She implores the audience to bear witness to this act and unable to look away, we do with mounting horror. We watch as Medea's mind at once argues at the wrongness of and the compelling inevitability of what she is about to do. We watch helplessly as this ancient train wreck gathers storm until it explodes in a grisly act of double murder. It was cruel, unrelenting and in a strange way, addictive.