Comedy

John Epperson

2 f. playing var. roles 6 m. playing var. roles

1 set

In this outlandish re-working of Euripides' "Medea," Gator Hedgepeth, a former Mississippi football star, plans to abandon his wife My Deah — an ex-beauty queen from Louisiana — and marry Simplicity Bullard, the daughter of the corrupt Mississippi governor. My Deah's bridge-playing buddies show up to play their weekly card game. Instead they get the domestic scoop from the touchy housekeeper Lillie V., and the physical education tutor of My Deah's sons, closeted homosexual Coach McCallister. My Deah confronts her card-dealing friends as well as the Governor, and she lays her bloody plans. Her vengefulness leads to the murders of trashy Simplicity and her father, and ultimately to the deaths of her own senseless sons, Skipper and Scooter. Deus ex machina, faux-Greekstyle, enables My Deah to attempt getaway to anonymity in wild, inebriated, immediately pre- Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. She hits the road, leaving Gator behind to live with the tragedy wrought by MY DEAH.

“Classics scholars could learn a thing or two from Mr. Epperson’s bawdy parody. Take that, Euripides.” —The New York Times (Critic’s pick)

“John Epperson, better known as the drag star Lypsinka, applies his custom blend of mascara and venom to Euripides in this frolicsome adaptation of ‘Medea’.” —The New Yorker

Fee: $75 per performance.