MSP’s Heart-Pounding Riveting Contemporary Take On Medea

By Aaron Krause

Expect emotional whiplash in Main Street Players’ (MSP) heart-pounding professional production of a lean and riveting modern adaptation of Euripides’ Greek tragedy, Medea.

In Sara Jarrell’s contemporary take on the ancient classic, a blood-soaked titular character, brandishing a knife, towers over a helpless and heartbroken Jason, who bemoans the loss of his young sons. In the following scene, a cheery social media influencer enters, as though she has just come from a refreshing massage. The dizzying contrast between moods—jarringly funny at first, then devastating—underscores how quickly our lives often return to normal following tragedies.

Indeed, the life cycle of a tragedy in the digital age often adheres to the following trajectory: shock, outrage, commentary, and forgetting.

But you’re unlikely to forget MSP’s production, which runs through March 15 in MSP’s intimate theater on Main Street in Miami Lakes. The running time is about 80 minutes with no intermission.

Under Jarrell’s tight direction, the production stars talented thespians Jessica Calle as the title character, Melissa Gomez as media influencer Stephanie, Lucia Vazquez Guerra as Nurse, Roderick T. Randle as Jason, and Cheryl Ross as Creon.

Jarrell lands us in the current, seemingly omnipresent world of social media. In her script, Jarrell describes influencer Stephanie as a personality in the style of Stephanie Soo. She’s famous for, among other things, combining dark topics with relatable, engaging presentation. As Stephanie, Gomez ingratiates herself to us from the outset. With a warm, bubbly, dramatic voice that rises when she’s excited, Gomez’s Stephanie may call to mind Elle Woods from Legally Blonde.

Melissa Gomez

Stephanie’s brightness marks quite a contrast from Calle’s somber title character when we meet her shortly after the show begins. Her facial expression combines believable lethargy and sadness, and her voice convincingly captures those emotions. Perhaps she’s worn herself out.

“I just saw Medea at the cafe on 14th,” Stephanie tells us. “She’s all alone. Talking to herself. And suddenly she just breaks. Yelling at the barista, asking if they know who she is. She’s crying out for her father. For her home.”

In Medea, by Greek tragedian Euripides (480–406 BCE), the titular sorceress exacts brutal revenge after her husband, Jason, abandons her and their children to marry a Corinthian princess. Medea, consumed by rage and betrayal, loses control and commits an unthinkable act while obviously not in her right mind. The play tackles themes such as vengeful passion, the consequences of betrayal, and the struggle for female agency in a patriarchal society.

Wisely, Jarrell and her cast don’t immediately place a madwoman onstage. Rather, this production builds toward Medea’s madness by showing her slowly but surely losing it.

“She broke slowly,” Stephanie explains. “Quietly. Privately erased. Publicly scorned. Until grief calcified into something unrecognizable.”

Normally in ancient drama, a Greek chorus comments on the action, acting as a bridge between the actors and the audience. The chorus’s main purpose is to provide moral, emotional, and social context, summarize plot, foreshadow events, and highlight the play’s themes.

In this updated production, social media consumers—Stephanie’s online audience—take the place of the traditional Greek chorus. They comment and offer their opinions via video, not only after hearing Stephanie, but from the titular character herself. In fact, Medea herself is also a social media influencer and personally knows Stephanie. One scene has them interacting like besties from a film such as the aforementioned Legally Blonde.

As the title character speaks to her online audience about her situation, small hearts rise on the screen, like those seen during a live TikTok broadcast. Those hearts not only symbolize how digital audiences react in real time, but also turn Medea’s misfortune into a shared moment. In other words, her suffering is no longer personal; it becomes a shared spectacle, mirroring how we often consume tragedy in the digital age.

One may wonder whether presenting a blood-soaked titular character onstage, brandishing a knife, sensationalizes the action. Perhaps. But the scene, reminiscent of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, vividly demonstrates just how far Medea has descended into madness. The fake blood may make some viewers queasy, yet it draws attention to the arresting stage picture the director creates: Medea towering over a helpless Jason.

Speaking of Jason, Randall portrays him as an impatient, nervous, and arrogant man who evidently no longer loves Medea as he once may have. He also comes across as unapologetically misogynistic: “Honestly? If children could exist without women, life would be so much simpler,” he says coldly. Yet Randall’s Jason exudes genuine enthusiasm when discussing his sons’ future, and his heartbreak is palpable once he learns of their true fate.

Clearly, Calle’s Medea isn’t an unfeeling, uncaring monster. The performer and director carefully depict the title character as a sensitive person pushed to the limit after having her husband, home, and more stripped from her. Of course, we hardly condone what she ultimately does to her children. However, we understand the heartbreak, betrayal, and desperation that drove her to such an unimaginable extreme.

In one scene, when she talks to Jason, Calle’s Medea sounds like a changed person, her calm voice conveying reason and genuine sorrow. We even wonder whether this adaptation will conclude with the couple making up and living happily ever after.

But just when you think Medea has experienced a change in heart, she turns cunning and calculating, red lighting shining down on her. She paces, her fingers curl into claws, and she sets her plan in motion.

One of the final scenes featuring the title character is devastating to experience. Her voice breaking, she picks up a photo of her children, and holds it to her heart. She talks tenderly to it, as though they can hear her. Then, in a sudden rage, she breaks the photo and falls to the floor, crying.

While Medea clearly suffers in this production, she’s not alone, even after Jason abandons her. Her Nurse, a sympathetic Guerra, tries to remain optimistic while supporting the title character. Indeed, she rushes in with the force of a tornado during one of the play’s most chaotic scenes, providing both practical and emotional grounding.

Palpable tension emerges in scenes between the title character and Creon. A commanding Ross portrays her with polish and polite authority. At one point, Ross’s Creon literally backs Medea into a corner, physically asserting her power and reinforcing the character’s control over Medea’s fate.

The actors perform on Amanda Sparhawk’s spacious and detailed set. With a greyish couch, large green chairs, a photo of children in a white circular frame, a box of tissues on a table, plants, and a closed grey curtain, the space resembles the inside of a funeral home, subtly suggesting the tragedy to come. The absence of windows reinforces a sense of entrapment, particularly for the titular character.

In the final analysis, by framing an ancient story through the modern lens of social media and emotional whiplash, MSP delivers a Medea that the company and the community can be proud of. This staging feels urgent, unsettling, and deeply human. The production challenges audiences while leaving a lasting impression—reminding us how quickly life can shift from normalcy to catastrophe and warning us to spot signs of emotional imbalance sooner rather than later. After all, human lives may depend on it.

 Main Street Players’ production of Medea continues through March 15 at the company’s intimate space through March 15. The address is 6812 Main St. in Miami Lakes. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets adults $30, students and seniors $25. Visit www.mainstreetplayers.com, or call (305) 558-3737.