Single Review on past events

A glimpse into contemporary theatre is what Julia Boll gave her audience in her presentation. She showed clips of the Brazilian-British theatre co-production “Hotel Medea” (2001-2012). The story is based on the Greek myth of Medea, the result is an overnight promenade performance (lasting five hours, from midnight until dawn) which actively involves the audience. According to the myth, Jason, nephew of king Pelias of Iolkos, and the Argonauts come to Colchis, where Medea lives, to steal the Golden Fleece that is protected by Medea´s father, king Aietes. Medea and Jason fall in love and she helps him to steal the Fleece. In order to escape she kills members of her family. Medea and Jason live with their children in Corinth until Jason leaves Medea for the daughter of king Creon of Corinth. To take revenge Medea sends a poissoned dress to Jason´s bride and also kills her own children.

The production “Hotel Medea” is an example of how to bring the figure of the homo sacer on stage. Medea herself, the archetypal refugee, represents the homo sacer, whom philosopher Giorgio Agamben describes as the one whose life is sacred, defined purely by her exclusion from the polis and stripped of all civil and human rights and of social and legal status. What is left is the bare life, the contact with which is taboo. Mostly, the bare life has remained invisible – its taboo status demands a shielding from the public eye. As the central political taboo on which, according to Agamben, Western society is founded, it has also remained the last taboo to be brought to the theatre. Drawing from philosopher Kelly Oliver's theory of an ethics based on witnessing, the theatre might be seen as the art form best suited to enable ´”witnessing beyond recognition”.

And “Hotel Medea” might be seen as a perfect example for doing so, as it actively involves the audience which gets in contact with Medea and Jason: in Chapter 1 for example, the stage is a dancefloor and Medea kills her family amongst the audience dancing. Julia Boll described how “Hotel Medea's” unique inclusion and physical engagement of the audience allows for both the witnessing of and responding to the homo sacer. For her it was an experience that goes far beyond spectatorship and successfully enables the audience to establish a relationship with the politically and socially excluded which might overcome that exclusion: although Medea is a murderer the spectator feels empathy with her. In the end Julia Boll admitted that she had needed two packages of tissues when she left the play.