Theatre News

Late night show Hotel Medea comes to Southbank Centre

Theo Bosanquet
London's West End

Award-winning late night interactive show Hotel Medea will transfer to the Southbank Centre’s Hayward Gallery from 21 July to 11 August 2012 (previews from 19 July), Whatsonstage.com can reveal.

Staged over six hours and starting at midnight, the production is billed as an “extraordinary, interactive, promenade re-telling of the marriage of Medea and Jason”.

Featuring a vibrant Brazilian party, a soundtrack by DJ Dolores, a participatory cabaret show, live video technology and steaming cups of hot chocolate, it “disintegrates barriers between performers and the audience, and together they create a frenzied maze of food, blood and dance before sharing breakfast at dawn”.

Hotel Medea, a collaboration between Brazilian company Zecora Ura and UK artist Jade Persis Maravala, will run as part of Southbank Centre’s Festival of the World with MasterCard.

The show takes place in three parts:

  • Part I – Zero Hour Market: The Meeting and Marriage of Jason and Medea performed to a live DJ set. A maze of blood, food and dance turns into a frenzied battle for the Golden Fleece. People can also book to see Zero Hour Market as a stand alone show on Thursdays at a slightly earlier time, during the four week run.

  • ‘Feast
    of Dawn’ from Hotel Medea (photo: Ludovic des Cognets)

    Part II – Drylands: a post-modern wasteland. Live documentary, hot chocolate and CCTV cameras add a contemporary perspective to Jason’s betrayal.

  • Part III – Feast of Dawn: a harrowing voyage through the landscape of Medea’s mind with paparazzi chases, burning brides and a twisted game of hide and seek before breakfast at dawn.

    Written by Persis-Jade Maravala and the company based on Euripides’ original, Hotel Medea was recently awarded the Prix Ars Electronica Award for Hybrid Art (June 2011) and the Herald Angel Award at Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2011. It was first seen in London as part of LIFT in 2010.

    The cast comprises: Jorge Lopes Ramos, Persis-Jade Maravala, Lisa Lapidge, Carlos Rezende, Flávio Rabelo, Raquel Aguilera, James Turpin, Thelma Sharma, Urias de Oliveira, Will Dickie, Fabiola Santana, Giovana Lo Conte, Abigail Butler, Marnie Nash, Hayley Hill, Eris Maximiniano and Silvia Almeida.