Frank Kastorf: He explains how he imagines his own "Medea" that he will direct in Epidaurus (video)

“What do you do after reading Euripides’ Medea?». In the question that Frank Castorf asked himself, it took him a long time to respond and – it seems – the same will happen to the Epidaurus orchestra, as the star guest of the Athens and Epidaurus Festival on July 21 and 22. Because the Volksbuhne’s theatrical intellect comes to Greece with a desire to confirm all the characteristics that accuse it: Free, anarchic, associative thinking, unconventional dramaturgy, subversive and at the same time synthetic look, epic (and lasting) performances.

He creates by destroying

Earlier in the afternoon, speaking to journalists, Frank Kastorf proved that at 74 years old he remains a creative field of great contradictions, teasing the artistic directors of festivals and major theaters who still invite him to direct. “Why do you want to ruin your reputation?” he claims to have responded to Katerina Evagelatos’ invitation to direct for Epidaurus; something he repeated in the recent offer he received from the historical troupe of the Comedie Francaise. “I worked for 25 years to destroy everything the German theater knew until then. This is the way I work: First I destroy, then I compose. Something new will always emerge from the ruins,” he notes, roughly outlining his intentions for “Medea”.

It wasn’t long before last December that Castorf did stand in front of the ruins – of Epidaurus this time – listening to the loneliness of the landscape, trying to envision the loneliness of Medea “a woman alone, betrayed, exiled”. Today, five months later, the leading theater director and visionary still does not have a clear picture of the “Medea” he will present to us as, as he explains, “I have an idea and then another, another that takes me to the next one. I can promise anything and do the opposite. It’s an almost psychopathological condition,” he notes, mocking himself.