Resurrecting antiquity: Memories of Medea in the Caribbean

Abstract

This article maps out some of the ways in which classical antiquity is remembered in Caribbean theatre. Specifically, it discusses the refiguration of the ancient Medea myths within two plays by Steve Carter and José Triana, Pecong and Medea in the Mirror. In both plays, memories of Medea’s story are interwoven into religious rituals native to the authors’ own environments, whereby echoes of ancient characters, narratives and themes become part of the Caribbean cultural landscape. Through the narrative structure of these staged rituals, as well as the plays’ wider concerns with displacement, gender, class and race, both playwrights draw parallels between antiquity and modern Cuba and Trinidad; parallels in which the plays decontextualise narratives and characters from Graeco-Roman myths to tell stories specific to twentieth-century Caribbean islands. This article therein analyses the competitive framework that exists between memories of the classical, European canon and local Caribbean cultural environments.