Review by Simon Jenner, June 18th 2025
A Japanese restaurant for the pleasure of male clientele; in 1900. A bright western-style mural backdrop through which eight women process with bags over their heads, carrying a photo to represent them. Some are selected. Directed by Satoshi Miyagi, Euripides’ Medea runs at the Coronet Theatre in collaboration with Shizuoka Performing Arts Center till June 21st.
Photo Credit: Takuma Ushida
Seven men sit and become chorus to what follows. Only one or two women re-enter. Only men ever speak even women’s parts; though women act. And play Hiroko Tanakawa’s percussion-led music (sharp sound design by Yukino Sawada) ominously from behind the mural. That’s Junpei Kiz’s strikingly simple set whose other feature is a towering bookcase where books are perilously placed. One woman stays throughout. Another man lurks ragged in shadows.
Seen in 20 cities and 11 countries, Satoshi Miyagi’s Medea is a ground-breaking meditation: on Japanese imperialism emerging as the country rapidly assimilated everything western. That includes culture – and racism. Oppression of women being a universal given, Japan was able to fine-tune its version too. Hence wrenching Medea back as the story of an Asian woman, othered in an alien Greek court. Her perceived exoticism runs thin, a younger Greek princess is preferred. This reinforces Medea’s otherness, and places her within Japan’s patriarchal misogyny.
The play itself fits into Japanese traditions: chorus, elements of mask, offstage deaths. But there’s a startling exception here, and a moment when women take over. Kayo Takahashi Deschene’s costume dazzle with ritual and a shock of self-colours at a crucial moment. Faces are made up. It might be modern Japan c. 1900: but that’s no licence to shrug tradition.
The action, nearly 85 minutes, is a direct Japanese translation of the play, lasting exactly as long as most adaptations do. Though there’s a rubato of affect and slow moments of retelling, as much reported action is convulsed onstage by the protagonist. When Koji Osako’s lighting is full, we might be in a child’s room: the child comes bookishly on to select another volume from the stack. What happens to it is emblematic, though it’s also a cultural comment, a freightage of centuries. Which is about to be overturned. The final moment between mother and son is one of love and acceptance; and ritual sacrifice.
Other characters like Jason, King Creon and a Servant arrive to constellate, cajole or sympathise. The male chorus exhibits on occasion guttural sympathy with warnings; as well as stereotypical grunts. Storytelling passes from one to the other. If gender’s fluid only vocally, roles certainly morph, save for Medea herself.
The Japanese is translated to English by Japan Society on two side monitors, slightly far off though brightly worded. A larger central monitor is lit just too dimly to make reading comfortable. Nevertheless the action’s easy to follow.
Whilst we might know the story, the final 20 minutes are extraordinary. Medea‘s dilemma over what to do about the son she loves (here reduced to just one, not two) is agonised. This ensures the end’s even more visceral. Dispatching a princess with the father thrown in as a dividend is described in graphically unpleasant terms. As in the original. But here the mother’s agonising eclipses the wife’s. And there’s that final scene after the crisis: like a fourth wall falling inside the play.
The 16-strong cast can only be named: Micari, Kazunori, Yoneji Ouchi, Kouichi Ootaka, Yukio Kato, Yuumi Sakakibara, Yu Sakurauchi, Yuya Daidomumon, Miki Takii, Momoyo Tateno, Ayako Terauchi, Keita Mishima, Haruka Miyagishima, Fuyuko Moryama, Maki Honda, Miyuki Yamamoto, Soichiro Yoshiue. One of these is Medea.
This Medea deserves its fame. Using the original text, not another radical rewrite, Miyagi and his cast transpose an aesthetic on their terms. They suggest this c.1900 Japanese absorption of the western canon comes at a price. Female revenge, now translated, finds fertile ground in those abused. Medea is not alone. A must-see, though nearly sold-out.
Photo Credit: Takuma Ushida
