Sophie Okonedo and Ben Daniels to star in MEDEA at @sohoplace

A brand new production of Medea, adapted  by Robinson Jeffers from the play by Euripides, has been announced for @sohoplace from 11 February-22 April 2023.

Dominic Cooke directs Sophie Okonedo (Antony and Cleopatra, National Theatre - Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actress; and nominated for Best Actress Olivier Award) as Medea and Ben Daniels (The Normal Heart, National Theatre - Winner of Best Actor, Critics' Circle Theatre Awards, Nominated for Best Actor, Olivier Awards) as Jason/Creon/Aegeus, with full casting to be announced.

What could turn a woman from a lover into a destroyer of love? 

Medea tells the story of a woman laid bare by grief and rage, and her terrible quest for revenge  against the men who have abandoned her. 

Sophie Okonedo brings her visceral, mercurial brilliance to literature’s most titanic female  protagonist, whose complexity and contradictions have kept audiences on the edge of their seats, unable to look away, for almost 2,500 years.

Sophie Okonedo said: “I am really excited and a touch nervous to be playing Medea. I’m buoyed by  the fact I'm working with two of my closest friends and long-term collaborators, Dominic Cooke and  Ben Daniels. I was lucky enough to have Nica Burns show me around the new @sohoplace theatre  while it was still being built, and I was so impressed by the space that I signed up immediately to  perform there!” 

Dominic Cooke added: “I have been friends with Sophie Okonedo since we were in our  teens. We’ve worked together many times including on Arabian Nights at the Young Vic in 1998 and The Hollow Crown: Wars of the Roses for the BBC in 2015. Sophie is one of our most visceral,  emotionally connected actors and I have long thought she’d be a brilliant Medea. I am over the moon  that it’s now happening as the second West End production for Fictionhouse, run by Kate Horton and  myself. I’m also really looking forward to working again with the super talented Ben Daniels after our hugely fulfilling collaboration on The Normal Heart at the National Theatre. Ben and Sophie have  been an explosive onstage partnership in the past and I can’t wait to see them playing these iconic  roles together in Nica Burns’ thrilling new auditorium @sohoplace.” 

The production is designed by Vicki Mortimer, with lighting by Neil Austin, and sound by Gareth Fry.

For more information, please click here.