Re-Imagining Euripides' Medea: Pre-Colonial Indigenous Elements in Alfaro's Mojada

Abstract:

This essay examines pre-colonial Mesoamerican elements in Luis Alfaro’s Mojada, highlighting significant differences between the recently published script of the play and a version produced at the Public Theater in New York City, which I attended in summer 2019, to argue that the Public Theater production questions whether Indigenous myth and ritual can persist and function effectively in the United States in the face of the brutal and dehumanizing forces of capitalism and racism. This essay contributes to discussions of the ways in which theatrical representations of Indigeneity function across different Latinx cultures and even different versions of the same play.