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Immigration, refugees, politics, and betrayal — it's Greek drama at the Getty Villa
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Dan Carino
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Sep 11, 2015
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Immigration, refugees, politics, and betrayal — it's Greek drama at the Getty Villa
"It is a bitter thing to be a woman," says Euripides' Medea. In a new adaptation at the Getty Villa, with the action moved to Boyle Heights and mixed with the woes of ambitious undocumented immigrants, it is still very bitter.
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"It is a bitter thing to be a woman," says Euripides' Medea. In a new adaptation at the Getty Villa, with the action moved to Boyle Heights and mixed with the woes of ambitious undocumented immigrants, it is still very bitter.

It's a very old story, as Euripides told it some 2,400 years ago: Jason (leader of the Argonauts) leaves his wife Medea when Creon, the king of Corinth, offers to let him marry his daughter. Bad move. Medea gets her revenge by killing their children.

"It is a bitter thing to be a woman," she says. "Men boast their battles, but it is easier to stand in battle three times in the front lines in the stabbing fury than to bear one child."

("Medea (about to murder her children)," Eugène Ferdinand Victor Delacroix (1862), Credit: Wikipedia Commons.)

In "Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles," MacArthur Fellow Luis Alfaro has made Medea an undocumented Mexican seamstress, fighting assimilation and her husband Hason's ambition. Hason cannot resist the power offered him by a fully assimilated and childless woman developer, and when Medea discovers that he's married her rival, and will lose her child, the caca hits the ventilador.

Although it's set in Boyle Heights, Alfaro's play, directed by Jessica Kubzansky and produced by The Theatre @ Boston Court, is in performance in the ancient outdoor amphitheater at the Getty Villa, adding yet another layer to the reworking of the classic text.

Listen to the audio to hear my conversation with Alfaro after the premiere Wednesday night.

"Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles," plays Thur. – Sat. through Oct. 3 at 8pm at the Getty Villa. tickets from $36 - $45.