Sophie Klein: “Translating Medea: The Poetry and Drama of the Woman and the Play”
By Sloane McLean
Boston University’s own Dr. Sophie Klein, a senior lecturer in the Classical Studies department, spent this past summer reading her translation of Euripides’s Medea out loud to her dog. Her canine companion, as she quipped at her talk on April 3rd, couldn’t respond back, but the act of saying the words she had put on paper out loud was vital to her writing process. Klein aimed to capture the melodious quality of the original ancient Greek but understood that certain English phrases work fine in print but – for one reason or another – not when spoken aloud.
It is no surprise that Klein possesses a keen sense of oral composition. She has taken on a variety of roles in theater since her days as an undergraduate at Brown University, both on and behind the stage, and has written several original dramatic scripts as well. Her special expertise as a Classicist in Greek and Roman theater has deeply motivated her research and other professional work. In 2022 she published a book on Plautus’s Roman comedy Menaechmi, and her 2013 paper “Animaniacs and Ancient Greek Satyr Drama” explores the comedic similarities between a contemporary cartoon and Greek satire. Approached by the director Christine Hamel for advice on choosing a Medea translation, Klein jumped at the chance to translate it herself in such close collaboration with a specific production.
Hamel, who was also present at the talk, shared that from the outset she and Klein had the desire to explore Medea’s identity as an outsider. In her director’s notes, Hamel writes “This production approaches Medea as someone who dares to inhabit the heroic code typically reserved only for Greek men – “help your own, harm your enemies” – even though that code was never meant for her… Medea’s “excess” is not madness but the logical conclusion of a system that refuses her humanity.” Klein aimed to emphasize Medea’s status both as a woman and an immigrant: in this version, Medea is from Mexico, and the play is implicitly set in the United States rather than ancient Greece. In today’s U.S. with its turmoil over immigration, these systemic themes are especially pertinent. Scorned by her lover Jason’s betrayal through his marriage to another woman, Medea faces banishment from the land to which she immigrated – and ultimately sacrifices their beloved sons as part of her revenge.
In the spirit of adapting an ancient story for contemporary times, Klein adopted various contemporary American phrases like “blended family” which, needless to say, are not found in the original. The effectiveness of these modern touches became clear when several cast members from the play performed a few scenes for the audience at the talk, and brought out the full intended effect of such ironic touches. During his exposition to Medea, Jason insists that his new marriage is in the interest of “diversify[ing] his stock,” which amused audience members and led one to later describe him as “loathsome.” On this point, Klein emphasized one of her tenets of translation: “If something makes you laugh, keep it.”
Although Klein took several such creative liberties in the name of contemporary resonance, she still sought to preserve the rhythmic vitality of Euripides. As a glimpse into her translation process, she shared an excerpt of the play’s opening in the original Greek, highlighting the aspects she deemed most important. The first few lines assume prior knowledge of Medea’s life – namely how she assisted Jason’s quest to obtain the Golden Fleece, using her magic to outwit the beasts and warriors who stood in his way. Klein inserted some of this context for ease of understanding, blending it seamlessly with a rhythmic quality that emulates the source text. Where Euripides wrote more literally, something like “mobile rocks that clashed together to crush any ships running between them,” Klein writes of a ship “winging its way through the deep blue clashing crashing rocks,” breathing new life into the flight metaphor by trading literal explanation for vivid sonic effect. “To furnish with oars/The best men” becomes “Blades in the hands of heroes/Shipping off in search of a golden fleece,” a play on the original Greek’s double entendre which can refer to either oars or the handles of knives – a subtle nod to the violence that ultimately consumes the play. The result is a richly cadenced yet accessible final product.
Audience members showed tremendous appreciation for the performance sample and were widely receptive to Klein’s transposition of the play. Several questions arose about the seemingly incongruous choice to change the play’s implied setting to today’s United States while retaining geographical references to Greek locations within the script. Klein and Hamel responded with the observation that even during Euripides’ time, this practice of geographical mixing was quite common, with playwrights relocating myths to suit theme and audience. In this sense, reimagining Medea as a modern-day outsider is actually in the original spirit of ancient Greek theater. They further revealed that several additional on-stage elements (including ICE agents) would, in the full performance, contribute to the sense that the play, while ancient, “speaks” to today’s America, countering any cognitive dissonance created by the Greek references.
With the overt adjustments Klein made to Euripides’s original, is it still fair to call her script a translation? Klein was unsure herself when directly asked how she would categorize it, though she eventually settled on the term “meditation.” This seems fitting – in Hamel’s words, Klein’s Medea prompts us to question “where suffering truly originates… how injustice transforms those who live within it, and what radical change for a more just world might actually require.”
Watch Dr. Klein’s full lecture, with comments by Director Christine Hamel and the actors performing excerpts here.