The story of Medea’s murder of her own children to gain revenge against their faithless father has been tackled from many angles by playwrights and directors from Euripides’ time to the present. In recent years, due to highly sensationalized, real-life cases of mothers murdering their children, it has become fodder for sociologists, criminologists, psychologists, and feminists. Many recent productions (both original plays and directorial approaches to Euripides’ original) have avoided tackling the difficult questions raised by Euripides’ ending, which demands an answer to the following question: how could the gods send down a dragon-drawn chariot to rescue a woman who murdered her own children? Many contemporary authors and directors prefer to eliminate Euripides’ ending in order to focus on more immediate issues, such as the psychological or social damage resulting from patriarchy, colonialism, and misogyny. After considering several such productions, this article analyzes three plays that directly tackle Euripides’ troubling ending: two original scripts, by Heiner Müller and Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei respectively; and a production of Euripides’ original by Japanese director Miyagi Satoshi. Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei is Professor Emerita of Theatre at UCLA. An expert on postwar Japanese and cross-cultural performance, she is also a translator, director, and playwright. The author of Unspeakable Acts: The Avant-Garde Theatre of Terayama Shūji and Postwar Japan (University of Hawaii Press, 2005) and co-author of Theatre Histories: An Introduction (third edition, Routledge, 2016), she has published over a hundred articles, chapters, and reviews. She is an Associate Editor of Asian Theatre Journal and a Fellow of the College of Fellows of the American Theatre.

从欧里庇得斯时代至今，剧作家和导演从多个角度探讨了美狄亚谋杀自己的孩子以报复他们背信弃义的父亲的故事。近年来，由于母亲谋杀孩子的高度耸人听闻的真实案例，它已成为社会学家、犯罪学家、心理学家和女权主义者的素材。许多最近的作品（无论是原创剧本还是对欧里庇得斯原著的导演方法）都避免解决欧里庇得斯结局提出的难题，这需要回答以下问题：众神如何派出龙车来拯救一个杀害自己孩子的女人？许多当代作家和导演更喜欢消除欧里庇得斯的结局，以便专注于更直接的问题，例如父权制、殖民主义和厌女症造成的心理或社会损害。在考虑了几部这样的作品之后，本文分析了直接解决欧里庇得斯令人不安的结局的三部戏剧：两部原创剧本，分别由海纳·穆勒和卡罗尔·费舍尔·索根弗雷创作；以及由日本导演宫城聪制作的欧里庇得斯原作。Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei 是加州大学洛杉矶分校戏剧学院的名誉教授。她是战后日本和跨文化表演方面的专家，同时也是翻译、导演和剧作家。的作者 以及由日本导演宫城聪制作的欧里庇得斯原作。Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei 是加州大学洛杉矶分校戏剧学院的名誉教授。她是战后日本和跨文化表演方面的专家，同时也是翻译、导演和剧作家。的作者 以及由日本导演宫城聪制作的欧里庇得斯原作。Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei 是加州大学洛杉矶分校戏剧学院的名誉教授。她是战后日本和跨文化表演方面的专家，同时也是翻译、导演和剧作家。的作者不可言喻的行为：寺山修司和战后日本的前卫剧院（夏威夷大学出版社，2005 年）和《戏剧史：导论》（第三版，Routledge，2016 年）的合著者，她发表了一百多篇文章，章节, 和评论。她是《亚洲戏剧杂志》的副主编和美国戏剧院院士。