MEDEA on Media by Seongbukdong Beedoolkee Theatre
Seongbukdong Beedoolkee Theatre “MEDEA on Media”
Co-presented by Korean Cultural Center New York and NYU Skirball Center
Saturday, November 11, 2023, 7:30 PM
Sunday, November 12, 2023, 4:00 PM
“This is a Medea for the age of information overload, where violence and vulgarity permeate many forms of entertainment, from tv cartoons to confessional talk shows to video games… cannily narrows the gap between the classical and contemporary world.” – The Business Times
Seongbukdong Beedoolkee, an innovative contemporary theater company based in Seoul, South Korea, makes its NYC debut with an original take on the enduring Greek tragedy of Medea.
MEDEA on Media recasts the ancient tale as a commentary on contemporary media and serves it to the audience in outrageous ways, including talk shows, action movies, Disney cartoons, and an Instagrammable yoga class. With plenty of physicality and a dash of silliness, MEDEA on Media is also clever and profound.
Led by director Kim Hyun-tak, Seongbukdong Beedoolkee Theatre freely deconstructs the texts of both well-known masterpieces and modern Korean dramas to recreate them, incorporating contemporary social issues. Often, Kim’s performances use a different theatrical style depending on the material and topic, such as dance theatre, melodramatic film, or physical theatre, and most of them include active audience participation.
*The work is performed in Korean with English supertitles.