VERY SELDOM, A production onstage comes along and filters through your head and heart like a brace of electricity. Leila Henriques has taken Euripides’ Medea, written more than 2000 years ago, and given it a relevance that is searing. But it is her young cast that raise the hackles of this story to its very peak of possibility. The brief season ends tomorrow (30 November): Cancel all other plans and see this.

Medea (Gofoane Bodigelo) is portrayed as a woman wronged by society. She’s the mother of two boys. Divorced by her husband Jason (Londa Mkhize) in favour of a rich virgin bride, she has the threat of exile cast over her head. She is outraged with and fuelled by the urge to hurt back, and she’s not afraid to do so. It’s a story which brings havoc in its wake, but one that bears translation into a local kitchen sink-style production that makes your soul tremble with the narratives informing gender-based violence that are so endemic to our world.

But it is not the story itself that you will have in your crosshairs when you watch. It is the way in which it is told. The use of the two children, Andile Ngoboza and Privilege Ndhlovu, as Medea’s small sons speaks of a sophisticated, empathetic directorial eye and an understanding of the wildness of the child. Their brief appearances onstage bring goosebumps, as they break boundaries and are broken, in turn. With Superman and Batman respectively close to their chests.

Bodigelo in the title role teeters with a brilliance that shimmers. She’s angry to the point of blindness, but she never loses her sense of being a woman wronged rather than a demon or a witch. It is, however, the chorus comprising 17-year-olds Natasha Dube and Malcom Moloi that will leave you shattered and weeping for having experienced the privilege of seeing them work in tandem with the cast and the tale.

There is a wedding scene in the work which evades the literal, and is hemmed by a song constructed by Dube and Moloi and led by Dube in performance. It is one of those theatrical moments that transcends description as it reaches beyond the confines of the story and into another realm. This wedding and its song serve as a cipher to the whole tragedy, in its beauty, its sense of whimsy and eeriness and its clean use of symbolism.

The cast work magnificently together, telling an ancient tale which still rings true and stings in the intimate interstices of our society. Of course, every woman wronged by her husband with roving eyes and bad bank balances don’t resort to such horrifying extremes as Medea does, but the impotent anger of a woman forced by society to dance to tunes which are not comfortable, is a refrain that has never been muted.

With performers drawing from the Windybrow Arts Centre in Hillbrow and the Kwasha! Theatre Company, this beautiful and fierce rendition is testament to the level of talent we have in Johannesburg. Watch out for Natasha Dube: this young woman deserves the space to soar in the industry. Globally.

Medea’s season at the Market Theatre ends tomorrow – 30 November 2025 – but it warrants many legs all over the place.

Medea was written by Euripides in 431 BCE and directed by Leila Henriques. Performed by Gofaone Bodigelo, Natasha Dube, Jack Mabokachaba, Thingo Mcanyana, Londa Mkhize, Malcom Moloi, Privilege Ndhlovu and Andile Ngoboza it features design by Chloe Wittstock (set and costumes), Themba Mthimkulu (lighting) and Andile Mgeyi (choreography). It is onstage at the Barney Simon Theatre, Market Theatre in Newtown, Johannesburg until 30 November 2025.