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A German-French theater project
Cooperation KULA Compagnie (DE) & Instant MIX (FR)

Texts Julie Paucker, Anne Bérélowitch (play development, based on texts created during rehearsals)
Bilingual version Isabelle Rivoal, Julie Paucker, Anne Bérélowitch
Direction Anne Bérélowitch
Dramaturgy Julie Paucker
Médée / Martha Biberkopf Isabelle Rivoal
Jason / Julien Ribel Romaric Séguin

Martha Biberkopf has seen it all in her life. Against all odds, she has managed to become a famous director within the patriarchal structures of the German city theater. She welcomes the MeToo debate, but finds it belated and somewhat underexposed. Standing on stage again, alone and self-directed – that is her dream. Heiner Müller's "Medea Material“ is the only play from her career that fits that endeavor. Medea. The most controversial female figure in Western literature: Medea the child murderer, the barbarian, the emancipated woman, the rebel, the victim, the sorceress, the refugee, the feminist.

Martha's evening is supposed to be a monologue. But she needs a silent counterpart, a male being, another presence on stage: she has hired a dancer, the young Frenchman Julien: he is handsome and amazingly agile. Julien cleverly covered up the fact that he hardly speaks any German; it didn't seem to matter either as he is supposed to function only as a body. Julien doesn't mind, he can turn any task into a challenge. In Martha's slipstream, he embarks on a journey of movement into the world of Jason and Medea. Martha enters into an argument with this author and with an entire generation of men who seem to know everything about gender relations and believe that by describing the injustice of the oppression of women as a tragic necessity, they are doing emancipation a favor.

Me.Médée In the course of one night, Martha and Julien meet as director and player, as German and French, as woman and man of different generations, as bodies and as languages on stage, as representatives of different styles and traditions of theater. The encounter will radically change Martha's conception of the play.

Me.Médée is an entertaining multilingual evening of theater, taking up a challenge and taking a chance. Telling the great stories of mythology anew raises fundamental questions about the structures of theater, about the meaning of roles, and about tradition.
Dealing with two European languages linked by a long history of enmity and friendship, the play embodies the utopia of a mutual understanding across all differences.

Residences/Venues: La Maison Jacques Copeau, Pernard-Vergelesses, Bourgogne (FR), La Guillotine, Paris-Montreuil (FR), Kulturhaus Helferei, Zurich (CH), Spreehalle Berlin (GER)