news
Representing
England
Trojan
Women in Canada July and August 2008
Fresh
from its premiere in Manchester and performance at the Buxton
Fringe festival, Eyewitness will be bringing their adaptation
of TROJAN WOMEN to Canada. Click on Winnipeg,
Saskatoon
or Edmonton
for details and times.

Click here for
Trojan Women programme notes
Canadian
International Theatre Festival Edmonton 2008
Eyewitness
Theatre Company will be representing England at the Canadian
International Theatre Festival in Edmonton. We’ve won
this before with 'Our Daily Bread' in 1995 and with 'Family
Affairs' in 1998. Considering that both of these plays were
about English child protection incidents (and procedures) the
interest from Canadian audiences was phenomenal. (Our Daily
Bread won the US Festival later that year).
This time around we are performing an adaptation by Peter Mc
Garry of 'Trojan Women' by Euripides. We will also be performing
at the Winnepeg festival in Canada.
Eyewitness
at 24:7: Reviews
Click
for reviews at: Manchester Evening News, British
Theatre Guide, BBC
Eyewitness performed
Peter McGarry's 'Medea at the Manchester 24:7 Festival from
23rd to 29th June 2007.
Carly
Tarett features as Medea at the Manchester 24:7 Festival with
Peter McGarry's adaptation of 'Medea' from 23rd to 29th June
2007. This is an opportunity to see Carly, a regular feature
of our safeguarding children modules, perform in a ‘mainstream’
play. Her performance (we promise!) will be spellbinding. The
company seldom ventures into the field of mainstream performance
but has toured globally (Australasia, North America, South Africa,
Austria, Germany, Ireland and Vietnam) with full length plays
devised from its modules - often to great acclaim. For example,
OUR DAILY BREAD, a play about child abuse(set
in Manchester) has won six international awards. HOME
TO ROOST a piece about child bereavement won the US
International Theatre Festival in Orlando in 1999.
While a Greek tragedy Medea
is, in essence, the mother of all child abuse plays, and Eyewitness
is not unfamiliar with the motive and censure behind the murder
of children. Eyewitness will consolidate Medea
into its ‘Serious Case Reviews’ module later in
the year.
see
www.247theatrefestival.co.uk
for more details and watch out for our newsletter
Euripides
Adapted
Eyewitness
Theatre Company’s production of Medea frames Euripides’
original text acutely within the post-modernist structure of
motivation and outcome.
Rather
than telling the story in linear mode with the murder of Medea’s
children at the closing stages of the plot, Peter McGarry’s
21st century interpretation adds substantial weight to this
main premise by repeating it over and over. Through this, the
audience is invited to comprehend the rationale and incentive
for Medea’s action.
How can a mother, in whatever era, bring herself to slay her
own children? What dark forces compel her to commit this most
dreadful of crimes? Is she so evil? Or mad? Or both?
The
Chorus (of 105 Corinthian women) is played by just one actor,
Laura Danielle Sharpe, but retains its original role in the
play. Her cynical goading and critique of Medea’s motives
echoes Euripides’ original blend of innovative satire
and social commentary.
Euripides
did not punish Medea for her iniquities but allowed her to escape
in a golden chariot. Our Medea is not so fortunate. Her penalty
for murdering her children? To enact the part of Medea –
over and over, in different times and arenas. With her chorus
of one for companionship she wanders through time not knowing
whether or not she is Medea or why she has to play her role.