The Medea Complex
by Albuquerque playwright Patricia Crespin
Medea is a Chicana on death row at the Grant Women's Prison. A reporter comes for a last interview.
directed by Valli Rivera, starring Riti Sachdeva as Medea
May 20-June 5
Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 pm
Sundays at 2:00 pm
Angelo Jaramillo as Jason
Mario Moreno as Gilberto
Ed Chavez as Tito
Lenore Armijo as la Guitarrista
tickets $15 general/ $12 seniors and students
Sundays pay-what-you-wish
Synopsis
In a cold, dank interview room in a prison in Texas, Gilberto, an aging Latino journalist, finally gets his chance to interview the woman who made sensational headlines by committing four unspeakable murders. Medéa, an intoxicating young Mexican Immigrant woman, is to be executed in the morning. She never revealed the truth at her trial about her violent crimes and Gilberto demands to know the reasons for them. How could a mother drown her own daughters? Why did she butcher the state’s most beloved Senator and his daughter? Are the stories true that she also killed Jason, the father of her children? Can anything justify her crimes?
As Medéa’s story unfolds, Gilberto is drawn into an ominous tale of the past, wondering all the while if he can believe her incredulous account. The story moves from the interview room with Gilberto to the dark twisted inner world of Medéa’s mind where an ambiguous Guitarrista lives and only plays Cuco Sanchez songs, to scenes of her and her lover, Jason, in México. After the murders Jason followed Medéa to her childhood home, but his plan for vengeance crumbled when he discovered the horrors that led Medéa to commit murder. Did Jason then offer her his knife and ask Medéa to slay him too? Did Medéa oblige Jason’s wish that she put him out of his misery? Gilberto completes the interview only hours before Medéa is to be taken to the death chamber. Now that she has poured her heart out to him, can Medéa rely on Gilberto, the strange but comforting journalist, to tell her story to the world and give her the peace she so desperately seeks?
